On What wings
by Michael Spenik
Summary: Richard Michaels is the best Merc in Houston, Leader of the Texas Horde of Shapeshifters, Married to Tasha Nash, and now father to two adopted girls. Life is a challenge, but life is good... Until the man who would be god takes notice, and decides to properly challenge the Khan. Then the dragons come...


Prologue…

The man sits still on the bench outside his master's work area. He had been summoned days ago, and he had come as quickly as possible, the journey from the California coast to the stronghold closer to the eastern United States taking some time, but he hurried at the call of his master's voice. He had arrived on a fatigued horse, one of many which died of exhaustion during the journey, and come straight here to where he now waits. He has been waiting now for three days, sitting relaxed with his hands resting on his thighs and his back upright but relaxed, patient as he awaits the summons of his master.

The master had entered the workshop the moment he had summoned the man and has not stepped out since, not for food, water nor rest. His servants and those in his employ know not to disturb him in such times, and so they leave him be in peace, and the man waits on the bench. The man is narrow in appearance, his body crafted with not a bit of softness on him, his face sharp and hawk like, his hair falling to his shoulders in soft waves of brown. His face is pale, naturally Caucasian, though his eyes are a piercing blue, and he wears simple attire of jeans and t-shirt over sneakers as he waits.

The doors to the master's workshop finally opens and the master emerges, a leather apron over his front but his hands bare and coated with black soot. The master walks forward and drops a pile of iron at the man's feet where he sits, then extends a hand out that holds a helmet. The helmet is ornate and designed to fully cover the bearer's head, small horns on the forehead and the facial covering a demonic visage twisted in an evil, devilish smile.

"A First rises in Texas, and the Norse stand with him," the master says, his voice soothing and commanding at once. "I require Tiamet to rise, to test him, and destroy him."

The man prostrates before the master, his head bowed as he rises his hands to accept the gift of armor from the godlike man before him. The master places the helmet in the man's hands then walks away, his mind racing elsewhere while his chosen instrument raises his eyes to study the avatar he shall become.

On what wings…

Richard sits tensely under the Houston sky, his eyes intensely focused on his opponents across from him. The night had started good, but now he's in a tight spot, and he needs to win this. His back is against the wall, though, and he has lost too much already in the last couple of hours, though he refuses to quit. On the other hand, he usually has better cards.

"Fold," he says with a sigh, dropping the two cards he had held onto the card table and the three females sitting with him all laugh at his display.

Tasha is sitting across from him with Maddie and Jocelyn on either side of them at the poker table he had brought up onto the roof of Hoffman Resources. Maddie and Jocelyn have been adopted by the Pack and specifically by Richard and Tasha, his rescue of the two young girls in Florida imprinting them on him. Maddie is fifteen years old and Jocelyn is ten, both have brown hair, though Maddie has begun to dye hers blond. The two sisters had been the survivors of a family a local gang had attacked and killed. Richard had destroyed the well-funded but new gang while passing through that area some six months ago. The brown eyed girls are good kids, and the four of them had started a game night at least once a week, and this week was poker at Hoffman's, since Richard had worked late and has another meeting shortly.

"You smile too much," Jocelyn says with a childlike glee as she reaches out and pulls poker chips to her own pile.

"I'm having a good time," he says with a smile as he looks at the three females, then down at his watch with a real sigh. "But I have a meeting in ten that I have to get ready for, so…" he takes the remainder of his chips and starts to divide them into three piles to give to the others.

"Tell them to reschedule, you're the Khan," Maddie says with a teenage frown at her new guardian.

The young girl is obviously becoming comfortable with her new guardians, as she balks at curfews, rules and everything that normal teenagers fret over, including the monthly dances for the Pack's youth. It is especially grating on Richard as she has decided that Joachim is worth flirting with, and he has yet to make his peace with the sixteen year old were-bear. The Hispanic boy was the ring leader responsible for the Loupism of Lindsey Sochim, and is now a ward of Clan Cat instead of Heavy, in an effort to earn his place back in the Pack. Maddie is an attractive younger girl who only sees that the youth is strong, handsome to her, clever and is the leader of his small pack of teenage boys. Tasha had asked him to let her try to manage it, because if he did, he would likely break bones as well as feelings.

"It's not Pack, it's with the Chief Ranger and Knight Protector Reynolds," Richard says with a tight smile, giving each of the girls a hug in turn, then kissing Tasha on the forehead. "I can't reschedule, we're considered equals in the city."

"This about the contract?" Tasha asks, eyebrow arched.

"No, it's about the Norse, I think," he says with a tight frown. "Thor took a contract and confronted a trio of dragon looking birds near downtown during a magic wave this morning, used lightning in a cloudless sky and caused a scene."

Tasha sighs, "It was bound to happen eventually."

"I know, but now I have to explain, since Ragnar refuses," he says with a sigh, then turns and enters the roof door to the stairs that lead downwards.

Richard walks down the stairs and into the hallway of the second story of his office building, pausing as he enters the hall, familiar scents striking his nose. He continues after only a bare hesitation as he continues to his office and the trio of comfortable chairs and coffee table arrayed outside it, a pair of men sitting with mugs in hand. Richard pauses as he looks at the two men, one an old, gray haired and thin man in a green Carhart vest and jeans, a leather patch over his left eye. The other is younger, in his late twenties or early thirties, blond hair cut too short to grab and a short cropped beard on his jaw. The old man has only a Viking styled axe on his hip, while the blond man has a heavy headed hammer sitting next to him with a handle only a foot long.

"Odin, Thor, I didn't expect you two to come," Richard says with a nod to the two men, gods that have now taken form on Earth since the last magic Flare that gripped the world with immensely heavy magic for days.

"I was overzealous," Thor says as he stands, rising to his towering height of almost six and a half feet tall, nearly a foot taller than Richard. He wears blue jeans and a white t-shirt, has on a dark blue leather vest and has a brown heavy leather jacket over the arm of the chair.

"You should not have to manage the local authorities on my behalf," Thor says with a nod of respect to Richard, reaching out and placing a comradely hand on his shoulder. "I revealed my presence to them, I must explain."

"That's… good to hear," Richard says with a glance at Odin, who smiles and stands as well, his coffee also being placed on the table next to Thor's.

"But we shall speak, in the main, I think, Richard TigerEye," Odin says with a smile at the shapeshifter. "My son is a man of might and some magic, not of words and wisdom. You are a familiar face and your words carry weight. When the meeting is done, you and I shall talk, to ensure we are in the right."

"Well," Richard says with a toss of his head, gesturing to the hall. "If you will follow me, we'll go wait in the conference room for our other guests, they should be here soon."

Thor and Odin follow Richard, both bringing their coffee with them, and as they sit in the conference room, Thor sips his appreciatively.

"What is this flavor?" he asks intently, taking a deep inhalation of the steam rising off the liquid. "I did not think that this thing you people brew could taste any better, but it does."

"That is an almond toffee blend I have made special for the office," Richard says with a smirk. "Normal coffee shops don't make their brews as sweet, but shapeshifters burn more calories, and the kick of sweetness is a good touch, I think."

"I would ask for the recipe," Thor says around the rim of his mug. "It would be wonderful after a long hunt or battle in the coming winter months."

"I'll have a few bags sent to the village, along with the going price we get it for, no overhead," Richard says with a nod. "The Knight Protector and Chief Ranger have just entered the building."

"My ravens are watching," Odin says with a nod and tilt to of his head. "How do you know, though?"

Richard taps his nose as his secretary enters with tea for him and setting out coffee for the two other guests that will be joining them shortly.

"I can smell them shortly after they enter the building, and their scent signatures are distinctive," he says with a smile, standing as he buttons his suit jacket, a blue wool. "And I can hear them climbing the stairs, they are in the hall now."

A pair of moments later, Ranger Roberts and the Knight Protector are entering the conference room, Thor and Odin standing opposite the door and next to each other across from them. Roberts looks very much like the old TV show character Walker, Texas Ranger, with a red brown beard, finger length hair and solid build, but with gray in his hair and lines of age on his face. Reynolds is only a touch over five foot, lean and hard, with dark ebony skin, short hair less than an inch long and her dark face fixed in a hard scowl with gray leather armor and cloak over her longsword.

"Rick," Roberts says with a nod to Richard, but his gaze returning almost immediately to the pair across from him. "We weren't expecting any others, were we?"

"We weren't, they surprised me as well," Richard agrees, gesturing to the seats and coffee. "Let's sit and I'll make the introductions."

Reynolds and Roberts sit, both studying the two Vikings that sit across from them, both large men with weapons of their own on their persons as they lean forward to take the coffee mugs in hand.

"Knight Protector, Chief Ranger, this is Odin and Thor, from Viking Mythology and Legend," Richard says with a smirk, unable to not smile in this bizarre situation. "And that is not an allusion to their ancestors, or a name given to them from their parents to respect the gods of their belief. They were both summoned… conjured…"

"Manifested," Odin provides with a nod to Richard.

"Manifested," Richard says with a nod and a deep breath as he forges ahead. "During the last magic flare, they were manifested by the people in Ragnar's territory not far from my own property. Their existence was made aware to me only six months ago."

The two law enforcement officers simply stare at the demigod and god across from them, eyes narrowed as they study them closely. Roberts is the first to speak.

"Rick, if I ever thought you were capable of a joke, I would think this is one, but I know you better," Roberts says slowly and carefully, adjusting to let him have better access to the 1911 pistol on his belt.

"You are the one who called lighting from the clear sky today?" Reynolds says, her eyes looking directly at Thor.

"Aye," he says with a nod as he clasps his hands in front of him on the table, his coffee pushed aside. "I apologize for the property damage, I was fervent in my use of Mjolnir, and did not mean to topple that building. It was clear of civilians, if I understand the situation that resulted, and I will pay recompense to the owners for the damage."

"It would seem that the new belief system that Ragnar has introduced here has taken deep roots, and they are here to stay," Richard says into the pause after Thor's words. "As you can see, the magic has left the world, and they are still here. They are not made completely of magic, but have fully corporeal forms."

"How powerful are you?" Reynolds asks, looking directly at Odin.

"Moreso than any in the Mage Academy, or any other magic user in the state, from what I can tell, but only during magic waves," Odin says with a smile and twist of his head. "I have some residual abilities when the tech turns, but no magic, though what I sacrificed in the name of wisdom remains regardless."

"He's been very useful in our research and development of some spells and magic," Richard adds. "Tasha, you may have heard, has regrown her foot. That is in part due to LycV, but also due to salves and poultices that Odin has helped my sister create. They work better than existing medicine on normal humans, as well."

"We will need some time to digest this," Reynolds says with a stony expression at the Vikings, an angry glance at Richard.

"The Mayor will need to know," Roberts says simply, and Richard nods in acknowledgement. "And this will change the contract proposal, I'd guess."

"I know," Richard says, his hands spread on the table. "Let me know when you want to meet again, and we'll discuss it then."

Richard escorts the two law enforcement officials out then returns to Thor and Odin in the conference room, both standing now and looking out the window at the city.

"There is something going on near City Hall," Odin says simply, gesturing towards the city center. "I can feel magic pooling and shifting. My ravens are on their way."

"Magic is still down," Richard says, but then the tech crashes and magic rules the world again. "Scratch that, its back."

"Let us go see what is going on, shall we?" Thor asks with a smile at Richard, idly twitching his hand that holds Mjolnir.

"I'll gear up, then we'll go," Richard says, turning from the thunder god to his office to change quickly.

Less than ten minutes later he is emerging from his office in jeans, leather vest and jacket, heavy weapons belt, quiver and bow in hand. In the hall he meets Tasha and the girls exiting the roof door.

"Where are you going?" Tasha asks, frowning at him. "You're supposed to head home with us, its lasagna night."

"There's a problem down town, near the Courthouse and City Hall," he says as he stops and gives her a quick hug and kiss on the cheek, gesturing to the front as they all continue to move. "Thor and I are going to go check it out."

"At least you're ditching us for a hot blond," Maddie says, then frowns hard as she realizes how that sounds.

"He's too old for you, by centuries," Richard admonishes the young teen with a mock scowl. "And he's out of the closet as a god, and looking to set a good example after screwing up earlier."

"Well, for backup, I suppose I can't complain," Tasha says with a sigh, squeezing his hand as they walk down the stairs to the front lobby.

"Lioness!" Thor booms from next to the front door with a grin and a short bow to the girls with Richard, his hammer held to his side. "I'm taking your husband to vanquish evil! Kiss him for luck, and we'll be off!"

"He talks like that on purpose, you know," Richard says with a smile, leaning over to give her another kiss, then trotting out the front door to where a pair of horses wait.

Richard has dismounted from his horse, Thor doing likewise, and both have scaled the fire escape of a building a block away from City Hall Plaza. They had heard destruction and screaming, and despite Thor's wishes to charge directly into the fight, Richard has convinced him to take to the rooftops so they can approach from high ground. As they leap from roof to roof, however, he realizes they may only be on even ground, not higher. The sight that greets them as they reach the edge of the building's roof causes Richard to recall his trip to New York and their magic drenched Island.

In the large square park before City Hall, five hundred yards on a side of rolling lawns, small ponds and walkways are two enormous creatures which Richard cannot identify. One is a giant snake, in simple terms, though easily a hundred yards long and its body over five feet thick in the middle. It looks like a rattlesnake, but with four horns on its head, two swept back along its neck and two more jutting forward over its eyes. The other is a cross between a number of animals and the size of a dinosaur, walking on four legs, the front legs covered in brown fur like a bear, the back two like an eagle's legs, a long neck like a dragon and a human like face covered in thick scales on its head. The head bears a circular crown of horns as long as its head, which is four feet across and bears overlarge, pointed teeth.

"You've got the snake," Richard says after only a moment of surveying the field, his emotions shoved into a corner of his mind to deal with later.

Richard runs along the edge of the building and leaps down onto the street below on bent knees, falling forward and rolling back to his feet. He notes absently that lightning and thunder sounds from the direction to his right where the horned serpent was, but he is studying his own target and who it fights. Three undead vampires are crawling along the monster's thick hide, trying to tear into it, but failing to get through the hide. The vampires are dried up and emaciated versions of what they were in life, no body fat and naked in the night with tight cords of muscle and sinew under their tight skin, red eyes of pure animalism burning but controlled by a distant navigator. As he watches, the long neck of over fifteen meters of muscle whips around, the human jaws lock around a vampire, crushing it in its own sharp teeth and flinging the undead body away.

It turns to where three Mages from the Mage Academy that borders the park are standing with four police officers bearing bows. The magic users are using offensive and defensive spells, one attacking by casting fireballs while the other two erect a ward around the group. The police are firing with their recurve bows, though they do not go deep enough to be fatal wounds. The head tilts and spits out a word laced with power and command, a power word spoken in the ancient language of magic.

The Mages and police freeze in place, the word meaning either stop or freeze, and the residual magic Richard feels from where he is thirty yards distance is immense. He continues his run, speeding up to a sprint as he approaches the quadrupedal monster that stands fifteen meters at the shoulder, his bow drawn and arrow on the string. He leaps high, aiming to land on the back, and fires while airborne, his arrow arcing out in a flash to land on the upper lip of the monster's face. The explosive head is not powerful, a delayed blast, so the small explosion takes out a pair of teeth on its right side and damages the mouth.

Richard lands on the beast's back with three arrows on the string. He draws and fires point blank into the back at his feet, the arrows burying in to the fletching, regular steel heads and shafts on a bow with a five hundred pound draw. The back legs go limp at the damage to the spinal column, and Richard jumps again, this time to the side as the monster tumbles down. Richard fires two arrows in mid-jump, both landing in different points on the right side of the creature's neck, small pops of explosions as they blow out chunks of meat.

He lands and rolls, as he did when he leapt off the building, bow ready before him with another arrow ready. He doesn't fire though, noting the fountains of blood pouring from the neck wounds and the death mutters coming from the mouth of the monster. He glances at those it had used the power word on, and notes they sag and then fall to their knees as they are released from the magic, shaking their heads to clear it.

"Keep your distance, this one is finished," he calls loudly as he trots around the dying monster, looking to the flashes of lighting are, where Thor is fighting.

He slows and narrows his eyes against the bright flashes, picking out Thor in the center of an open field with the lightning dancing out from Mjolnir at the lightning quick line of the snake. He takes a breath to yell at Thor, but stops, realizing the ear splitting thunder will drown him out. He instead sprints through the flashing lights, deafening sound and the gusting wind as he runs to the Viking's side.

"Stop!" Richard shouts as loud as he can when he is only a dozen yards from Thor, closing in slowly with his bow discarded and hands over his ears to protect from the sound.

Thor has noticed him and not fried him, but continues to lash out with lightning at the darting snake, which dives into solid ground as though it were water. Richard guesses it's an elemental creature, hence its ease with the ground. Richard is on a knee as he reaches Thor, the thunder god immune to the effects he is creating, but the thunder damaging to Richard's increased hearing sensitivity.

"STOP!" he shouts again, and Thor glances at him, but he can't hear, and tries to read the lips.

"The snake is deaf," Richard shouts. "It can't hear the thunder, and protects itself from the lightning by being underground."

Thor scowls, hearing his words, and his eyes darting around as Richard continues, "Hold the lighting until it attacks and I hold it, then hit it hard. You will get only one shot."

The Thunderer nods in understanding as he looks around, and Richard stands as he draws his sword and axe, going back to back with the larger man. A plume of dirt explodes in front of Richard a few moments later in the deafening silence. Richard leans back and drops to his own knees while focusing on the rising and dropping snake before him, it's mouth wide with two enormous fangs dripping venom.

"~~~~," he says in the ancient tongue, pouring magic into the word, _kneel_.

His world flashes black then red as he fights against the will of the horned serpent, the beast twitching to the side and missing him and Thor, slapping the ground hard. Richard can feel his soul burning as he uses his magic to hold the creature who struggles with an ancient power he had felt earlier against the other monster a few minutes ago. The depth of that magic causes his own ancient power to buck and shiver in his grasp, but he holds it tight, and the snake is pinned. Lightning flashes, and a thunderbolt from the sky strikes the monster's horned head, shattering the skull and frying the fluid within it, causing an explosion of bone, meat and scales.

Richard blinks hard, realizing he is lying on his back on the ground with his head twisted to the side to look at the dead snake. He blinks his eyes hard as he shakes his head, glancing up at where Thor is standing over him, scanning the area, ignoring his weakness. He opens his jaw and pops his ears, and sound returns through the ringing of his damaged ears. He pushes himself to a sitting position, and accepts a hand up from Thor, who only nods at him before resuming his scan of the area.

"You dispatched the other one," Thor says with a nod of appreciation as he gestures to the other dead monster with his chin. "Impressive, my friend," he adds as he relaxes in his heavy leather jacket and vest, his jeans bearing a few scorch marks from the lightning he had been throwing around.

"If it breathes and bleeds, it can be killed," Richard says with a sigh, feeling drained and tired, but no major injuries now that his ears are healing.

Richard is looking around, and notices that a large group of people are now approaching. He identifies at least a dozen Rangers, over thirty police officers, a handful of Mages and Mercs, and five Knights of the Order of Merciful Aid, Natalie Rushman, his ex-girlfriend, one of them. Richard picks up his weapons and places them on his belt while walking to where his bow is lying.

"Let me do the speaking, aye," Richard says with a glance at Thor in jeans, blue vest and brown jacket with his blond hair and beard.

"Of course," Thor says with a gesture of his free left hand at the approaching crowd, in the center of which is a wide shouldered man with bright white hair cut close to his skull.

"Mayor Miller," Richard says as he slings his bow over his back, wiping the remains of blood from his ears and neck. "I'm glad to see you weren't harmed."

"Khan Richard Michaels," Miller says with a frown of distaste as he approaches to within five yards and stops, looking now at the dead snake missing a head not far away. "And I presume this is Thor Odinson."

"Aye, Mayor Miller," Thor says with a tight smile and shallow bow of politeness. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"I finished a brief meeting with the Chief Ranger and Knight Protector, then got word of an attack here in the city center," Richard says before either can speak, controlling the conversation. "We came as quickly as we could. I hope the loss of life was minimal."

"Looks like at least two dozen," Rushman says from the side, her own spatha out, her gray leather jacket and leggings dim in the night sky illuminated by torches from the crowd. "Though most were responders to the call, only a half dozen or so were innocents. We're still getting reports."

"If the Order or City need anything, the Horde is more than willing to help," Richard says with a short bow of respect to Miller, and Thor speaks up.

"As would my people," he says simply and somberly. "We have nothing but respect for our neighbors, and wish to live in peace with them."

Miller looks like he's bitten something sour as he walks slowly towards where the other body lies, a mound of dead flesh covered in scales. He shakes his head with a sigh and turns back to Richard with a deep frown and shake of his head.

"You have done more than enough already," he says in a tone that is ambiguous. He takes a breath, then shakes his head again, "Thank you, Michaels, for being here when we needed it."

"You're welcome, Mayor," Richard says with a nod to the slightly older man.

"Khan," Miller says, frowning at the word. "Call my office, set up a meeting, about the contract proposal."

"Of course," Richard says with a slightly deeper bow before turning and leaving the area, Thor in tow.

When they are clear of the crowds and out of earshot, Thor asks the question that has been grating on him.

"Is there a reward for what we just did?" he asks, wondering if they will get paid for the kills.

"Pack lawyers will take care of it," Richard assures him. "But we're not looking at much for those, being random monsters. A few dozen thousand each, I'd guess, Miller's a penny pincher. But the contract potential, _that_ is what I am interested in."

"He mentioned a contract, what is that?" Thor asks as they walk down the street to their horses.

"I've pitched a plan to attack and neutralize the illegal black market alley near the docks," Richard says with a sigh. "I lose business in trade because of it, and the city doesn't have the resources to take on the assorted gangs and magic users in that area."

"The Horde may," Thor says doubtfully.

"May," Richard allows, then pauses next to his horse to look at Thor. "But with the Vikings working with us, as well as the witches and vohls, we will have the upper hand."

"Does my father know of this?" Thor asks with a frown.

"He's been in on it with me from day one," Richard admits, swinging up into the saddle. "He's helped me with some details."

"You are a man of many parts, Richard Michaels," Thor says with a shake of his head. "Many, many parts."

Richard walks into the front door of his house and pauses as he drinks in the scents of the building. His and Tasha's room are here on the first floor, and the loft had been converted into a pair of bedrooms for the two girls. Initially it had been problematic as they didn't have an extra bathroom, and it only took a week of sharing for Richard to throw money at the problem and have full plumbing and a bathroom added upstairs over where his gym is at. Thirty thousand dollars was easier to part with than dealing with sharing a bathroom between three women, two of them adolescent teens.

He parses out Tasha and the girls' scents, with the delicious smell of lasagna, fresh from the oven. He notes another scent among them and pushes his anger down to a corner of his mind as he walks into the house. His gladius remains on his belt by the front door, and he carries his axe with him as he enters the kitchen/dining area with the enlarged table for everyone to sit at. He simply looks at everyone as he walks to the peg by the back door that he hangs the ice axe from, all of them frozen in place as he moves silently with the weapon in hand. He eases his leather jacket off in the silence and hangs it on the coat rack by the door, then moves to his empty seat.

"Joachim, I thought you were visiting your parents tonight?" Richard says as he sits, the two girls on either side of him quiet and pensive, the were-bear teenager on the other side of Maddie.

"Mom pulled a double shift, khan," he says with an uncomfortable shift in his seat as he ducks his head. "She's trying to get the car paid off before Christmas, and we're hoping we can afford to have the cousins fly in for the holiday."

Richard only grunts non-committal, then bowing his head and taking Maddie and Jocelyn's hands, who join hands with the others at the table. Richard closes his eyes and says a silent prayer for a dozen seconds, gives himself the sign of the cross and claps his hands with a sigh.

"Let's eat," he says with a tight smile, trying to ignore that Joachim is here.

Tasha has made buttered green beans to accompany the meat heavy pasta, and as they are all shapeshifters, they eat multiple helpings each. The focus is on the food and eating, and in short order the food is gone, Tasha having planned for a dinner of four, not five. Richard had eaten less than his usual, though, and is on his fifth beer when the meal is done and he gestures to Joachim.

"She cooked, we clean," he says simply, and the youth nervously nods. "Tasha, can you set out a game of Life, please? I think it will be a good way to end the evening, and hopefully redeem myself for earlier."

"One condition," she says as she pulls on his arm as he carries dirty dishes, kissing him, then pausing. "Okay, two conditions," she says with a smile but a serious undertone. "Kiss, and quick summary of what happened downtown."

He gives her a lingering kiss, which the young folks in the room try to awkwardly ignore, then leans back as he sets the dishes in the sink that Joachim is starting to fill with hot water.

"Two monsters, one was a dragon with no wings and magic, a human like head, and the other was a giant elemental rattlesnake, tied to the earth," he says with a frown. "Thor and I handled it with no problem. Mayor showed up after, said thank you, then told me to schedule an appointment about the contract."

Tasha frowns in thought, "Is Will heading to the site?"

"I had word sent when I got to the Bastion," he says with a nod. "We'll have pictures tomorrow and descriptions. They weren't random monsters, I think there was a target."

"Hmmm," she says with a frown, then leans over and gives him another quick kiss.

When it is just him and Joachim, he glances at where Tasha is talking low in the other room and he does the same.

"How many relatives do you expect for the holiday?" he asks, not a topic the youth had expected.

The half Puerto Rican, half German American blinks at the question, then shrugs with a frown under his thick black eyebrows on his Hispanically cast features.

"We won't have the money to help, I think only a pair of aunts, I hope," he says. "We couldn't afford to feed more, not with my sister having the twins last month."

"I'll talk to Alex, and have the workman's fund released early," Richard says with a frown. "I never did like the timeline we set up in the initial program."

"Workman's fund?" Joachim asks with a frown, thoroughly confused.

"You've been getting paid since you got here, for your work," Richard says with a frown at him, anger in his tone because they both know the reason for his work. "You won't see a cent of it, because you caused the death of an innocent. But the families of the Horde will. Your pay, and that of all those who are doing labor for the Horde for infractions, is divvied up and given to needing families within the Horde, on a quarterly basis, though I'm going to change that to monthly."

"I didn't know," Joachim says dumbly with a blink and shake of his head. "I didn't know my family had been picked."

"Your sister's twins is the reason," Richard says as he wipes dry a baking pan as the teen washes. "Your mom was doing good, and I cut down her required tribute until the car is paid off and you are finished with your sentence."

"I-," he shakes his head in thought, amazed. "I had no idea."

"Look at me," Richard says in a low murmur, looking across at the shorter and thinner boy.

The were-bear recognizes the look of an alpha, and he swallows on a dry mouth as Richard's gaze is not just that of an Alpha, but a parent. His eyes gaze at Joachim hard as Richard speaks in the lowest of murmurs, barely audible to even enhanced hearing at this short distance.

"I have done many horrible, atrocious things in my life, including murdering my own father when I was fifteen with a rusty screwdriver in a dirty alley. Then watching him bleed out slowly while begging me to help… then he begged to finish him quickly when he realized I had no sympathy for him… ensuring that he passed from this world," Richard says while maintaining eye contact. "You hurt my girls in any way, and everything you have experienced so far will be as paradise compared to what I will do to you next. Do you understand?"

"Yes, khan," he manages to croak out.

Richard nods firmly, believing the boy, then goes back to cleaning the dishes as though nothing had happened.

Richard is getting ready for bed, Tasha sitting on the bed rubbing healing salve on her foot, the three big toes mostly formed and the other two are stubs, and none with nails yet. He is finishing toweling dry in the door to the bathroom, and she looks up at him with a slight disapproving look at him from her silk robe.

"I couldn't help but notice that Joachim smelled of fear as you joined us from the kitchen, and he was timid through the rest of the night," she says with an arched eyebrow.

"I reminded him that if he hurts Maddie, he will hurt far worse," Richard says softly, having learned that the girls upstairs listen raptly to what the adults in the house say after hours.

She scowls at him, "I told you to let me handle it."

"And I will," he says with a shrug. "But I have to do the protective father routine. I have to, or I look like someone I'm not."

"You said something besides that," Tasha says with a scrutinizing look as she puts the cap on the jar of salve. "He wasn't physically afraid, not exactly. It was something else you said."

Richard sighs with a frown, "I may have mentioned how my father died."

"You told a sixteen year old how you murdered your own father?" Tasha asks with both eyebrows raised and fighting not to shout at him.

"Not in incredible detail, but… enough," he says with a shrug. "Autumn's been sharing that with Atticus, I think, though. He and the other Cats have changed since she got here."

"They like her," Tasha says with a smile, glad at the change of topic. "We all do, even if her position is odd, to say the least. But yes, she has said some things to him, and to Mischa, about your childhood and teenage years."

Richard scowls now, "Great, and here I'd thought I'd put that all behind me."

"I have a serious question, though," she says, pulling a sock over the salved foot, leaning back on the bed and looking at him carefully. "She said that you were timid, when you were younger. That something changed you, before you killed your father, and it wasn't your family."

She doesn't speak the unsaid question, and he sighs, tossing the towel aside, then sitting naked on the bed next to her, looking across at the mirror on the bureau, making eye contact with her through it. He studies her face, her square and nearly handsome face, though feminine and strong. Mostly, he stares at her eyes, which calm him more than anything else in the world, the thing that grounds him constantly no matter what happens.

"It was the week prior to me killing my dad," he says in a near whisper, still staring at her in the mirror as she has an arm over his shoulders, rubbing his arm. "A mutated wolf-thing came out of a magic wave, and my friends and I were being stalked when we left school. We were often picked on by the jocks and bullies, and they did the same that day. When the howl broke the early evening air, they ran, like cowards."

He takes a deep breath and swallows hard as he recalls that night years ago, "They scented us as weaker, and followed us, and one of my friends was killed in the encounter before a Knight of the Order happened by and saved us."

He breathes deep and hard as he looks now at his hands, and she waits patiently for the rest of the story to come out, there must be more. After a few long moments, he continues in a hoarse voice.

"My friend, Joseph, the skinniest and smallest, he was the one that confronted the three monsters that had stalked us, all the size of a dog, forty pounds each, maybe," he says with guilt dripping from his face and voice. "He didn't back down, he didn't cry, he fought and fought, to keep them from us. They all had to focus on him to take him down, though he never stood a chance at those monsters…

"I watched my best friend sacrifice himself for us, watched him be torn apart and mauled by those monsters. He showed me what courage is supposed to be, and it took his sacrifice to push me over the edge, to make me embrace my own fears," he says with a solid tone to his voice, turning and facing her properly. "I cried too much at my own circumstance before that, and I started seeing the world for what it really is. A couple days later I realized how weak my father really was, when I saw what I had already endured. I made the decision to take care of my family and be a man, and that meant taking that cancer out of our lives."

They sit in silence for a long moment, him looking at his hands with a stoic expression, then looking up at her eyes, "I vomited twice as he bled out. But I made sure he didn't survive, and that we wouldn't get blamed for his death… It got easier after that."

"Come to bed," Tasha says softly, patting the bedding. "The past is past, let it stay there."

He nods silently and they curl up together in the night.

The man sits in the room alone, polishing the helmet and armor arrayed on the floor around him. He had made the first move, summoning the two great beasts in the City Park. The tiger and Thunderer had come, and he had witnessed the battle, short as it was. His initial plans will not work against them, they are too strong, and the Tiger is too smart to lose against his master's plan. So he must change it, and bring the chaos sooner than expected.

The meeting is taking place in the warehouse of the Triad family, along the Black Market Alley, a meeting of the heads of all the crime families and gangs in town. Three years ago, they would have met in Luchetti's, around the monthly meeting of the power players in the city, but now they can't. Now, their legitimate counterparts have pushed them out, have made them criminals in truth, not in name only.

"I think everyone is here," the man at the head of the long, U shaped table says with a forced half smile.

The leaders of seven groups sit at the table, and representatives of other, smaller, groups stand to the sides to listen and watch the meeting. The man at the head is arguably their leader, though he is really just the best funded and founded organization, and the undisputed head of that group in the city. He sits in a soft gray suit with thin threads of purple mixed in it, silk and well-tailored jacket and vest, a blood red silk shirt and black tie. His face is sharp and though he has wrinkles from age etched on his face, he is far older than he appears, looking to be in his mid-fifties with a shaved head. The man is slim and his suit hides an athletic figure with a few scars across it the others would never understand should they see them. He has two others in suits behind him, journeyman apprentices, and those gathered know that there are vampires lurking about under their control.

"You know we don't like to gather like this," the leader of the Sicilians says with a wave. "The Rangers or the Order get wind of it, they'll raid us for sure."

"That is precisely why we have to talk," the man says in cool tones as he leans back in his own folding chair at the top of the folding tables. "The Conclave has become too legitimate, and we all know the reason."

"Michaels," another of the leaders says, this one a Chinese man down the table in fine silk clothing. "He has come into town like a storm. A soft wind at the start, a gust that shakes it up, and now the wind continues to build."

"Poetic, and accurate," the bald man says with a nod and tight smile. "My own master has seen this, and an instrument has been dispatched to the city to rectify him."

The room is silent for a long pair of breaths as everyone in the room digests the man's words. They all know full well who the man's master is, and what he is capable of. The last time one of his "instruments" was dispatched, it killed hundreds of people and nearly destroyed Atlanta. And that was when it failed, not even speaking of the incidents in California and Missouri.

"He will not go down quietly," the Chinaman says as he looks at the bald man, his own black hair with strands of white in it slicked back. "He will fight until the end, as will his people, the Horde."

"Why are you telling us?" another leader asks, this one an older Mexican man with a bushy beard and eyebrows. "I have friends in the other cities that were hit, and they got no warning. Why do we?"

"This instrument is different than those that came before," the bald man says, tilting his head slightly. "The two creatures yesterday were its work."

"Michaels tore through them like nothing," the Sicilian says with a frown at the bald man. "This 'instrument' isn't doing very well, from what I see."

"You do not see everything," the man replies with a frown at the thick waisted man with black hair. "Michaels is working a contract with the Mayor, today, to organize and lead the Rangers and the Order here, with attachments from the Merc Guild. They intend to clear out Black Market Alley in its entirety."

After a brief pause as the words sink in, the room becomes a flurry of voices, rising to shouts and arguments as all the leaders and representatives ask questions and talk. The bald man doesn't move or speak, simply watches with a cool expression, and suddenly the far door of the room opens revealing a figure in black and red. The arguments die down and settle into silence as all those attending look at the figure who is standing over the guards sprawled at his feet.

The figure stands six feet tall, wide shoulders and slim waist, athletic in build, his standing and his appearance. He has on black robes and baggy pants over his body, the edges of the clothing colored the red of blood, and as he slowly walks across the room to the gathered gangsters, the slight shine and ripple of the clothing indicate it is silk. The clothing is only accentuated further by the black iron helmet the man wears, fitted tightly over his head. The mask depicts a demon's face twisted into an evil smile, small horns on the brow and sides, looking like a twisted demonic clown in black.

"Who are you?" the Sicilian asks as the man is halfway to the table, ten yards distant.

"I am the instrument of my master," a deep, scratching voice says from in the helmet. The sound should be soft and weak, but it reverberates through the room, and is heard by everyone. "I am sent by my master and lord to end the one you call Richard Michaels."

The room is silent and the gathered group look around as they absorb this, and the bald man speaks up to the group, not to the masked man.

"The Master requires your cooperation," the man says with a small, real smile. "They will come, and you cannot stop them, not without our help."

There is another pause, the reality of the statement sinking in, and it is the Triad leader that asks the question.

"What would you have us do?"

Richard keeps his smile hidden as he enters the front door of Hoffman Resources, having just finished his meeting with the Mayor. The man hates him, no secret there, but Richard has just proposed a joint operation between the Rangers, the Order and his people to wipe out nearly all organized crime in the city. It won't stop it all, that is impossible, but it will be a mortal blow to the underworld of the city, and will herald the death of major organized crime in the Houston area. He lets himself smile as he ascends the stairs to the second floor and enters the conference room there and the assembled leaders of the Horde.

"It's a go," he says as he walks in, looking around at all the Horde Alphas.

They all nod in various levels of acceptance, as more than a couple had been hesitant on the plan. A good number of the Horde want to keep distant and apart of the rest of the city, but Richard is pushing for unity and cooperation instead. The leaders understand, and are pushing for their people to understand, and for the last three months that is all they have been pushing for, this contract.

"How much did he agree to?" Thomas Domasca asks, Alpha of Clan Wolf, his wife Theresa Bridgett Domasca beside him at the table, both in suits and tie.

"We had to drop the money level, the Horde will only be paid two million," he says with a frown as he sits next to Tasha, squeezing her hand gently under the table as they join hands. "It's less than the three mil we wanted, but I was firm on the materials recovery. We will be entitled to forty percent of confiscated material."

"Better than we thought we would end up with," Mr. Jay, the Middle Eastern looking leader of Clan Jackal says from his own seat. "Very well done, Khan."

"We have a lot of preparation to do," Richard says, looking around the table at his people. "Bridgette, please contact the Witches and Vohls, I'll speak with your brother tonight if he can make it, and we'll start adjusting the plan. The Rangers and the Order will send representatives tomorrow for us to start working out the timeline and the details."

He leans forward with both hands on the table and looks around at them all, "This is the big push. I've worked out the general plan with the Order and Rangers already, so the details need to get worked out quickly. There is no way to keep something like this a secret for long, not with so many moving pieces and people involved. We need to have a good plan, not a perfect plan, before they can react and defend against the raid."

"Initiate the recall, everyone goes to the Bastion or the Castle," Tasha says, leaning forward as well and looking around. "We've been doing drills at random, and this will look the same. When the dust settles in a week or two after the raid, everyone goes back to normal schedules, and we re-establish dominance in the city."

"This is the foundation of the age we are building for our children and their children after them," he says as he looks around the table at them all, his face serious. "We must set it right so that we are not the monsters of the night, but the guardians and champions of the light."

Noel sits to Richard's right, his thick frame leaning back in the cushioned office chair looking out of place. He has a black leather vest over a white t-shirt, his six inch long hair mostly gray with black in it pulled back in a chaotic wave. His face is blocky and square, covered with heavy stubble the color of his hair. He chuckles like a landslide falling down a hillside.

"So, no pressure or anything," he says around his rumbling laugh, and the other Alphas smile then laugh with him, breaking the tension.

Richard is sitting in his office, Tasha across from him in her own seat as he looks at the sealed scroll on his desk. It had arrived while he was in his meeting with the Mayor, sent by the Beast Lord of Atlanta and hand delivered to his own by a young werewolf. The stoic and formidable looking late teenager had sat in the chair outside his office patiently and without protest, refusing to hand the scroll to anyone else. Richard had taken it and the wolf had left immediately, after which Richard had called Tasha into his office.

Now, he looks at the wax seal on it with a frown, recalling the discussions he'd had with Curran, on how they would contact each other in regards to news. He takes a breath and picks up the scroll, breaking the seal and opening the paper up to read it. He quirks an eyebrow as he reads, his reactive pessimism lifting as he reads it, until he is smiling at the end.

"What is it?" Tasha asks with her own quirked eyebrow as Richard lowers the scroll and smiles across at her.

"Curran and Kate sailed to the Caucus Mountains, crippled and killed Hugh d'Ambry, Roland's warlord, and stole the recipe for panacea," he says with a genuine smile at her.

She blinks, then shakes her head, "What?"

"They can make their own panacea," he says, repeating the part he cares about most. "He is willing to have two of our people go and learn the process, so we can spread the availability. We can save our people's children."

He is leaning forward eagerly now, his eyes and gaze intense and filled with joy as hers starts to reflect the same as she understands. He rises and she stands as well and they embrace in the middle of the office, him laughing at the news, she fighting not to cry.

"No more loups," he says with a grin as he pulls back and looks into her eyes with unrestrained happiness. "We can save our children, we can stop the madness and the deaths," he says with a stupid grin as he leans forward and kisses her forehead solidly. "I don't have to put our people's kids into their final sleep anymore."

"Our children will be safe," Tasha says with her own beaming smile, tears running down her cheeks. "We can raise them without fear."

"YES!" he shouts as he picks her up by her waist, hoisting her up with a laugh as he spins her about, and her joining his laughter.

A few moments later his door opens as they are still laughing, William there with another guard, having heard a muffled shout through the door. He looks at his Alphas with puzzlement, not expecting a laughing Khan and a crying Nimir-ra with a smile on her face.

"William, send word for my sister to come, as soon as possible," he says with a smile stuck on his face. "And catch Bridgette before she gets too far, I have news and I know they will insist on being our chosen."

"Yes, khan," he says with a confused nod, but moves to fulfill his khan's wishes.

Richard turns back to Tasha, "What do you think?"

"They are the strongest, and the best to learn," she says with a nod. "Bridgette has lost her own to loupism, and Autumn is family, she understands."

"I trust Curran, but the journey will be dangerous, with Roland wanting to keep his secret," he says with a shake of his head as he starts to think through the plan.

"You mentioned that, from the message," she says, picking up the scroll on the table and reading it herself. "Something about Roland's Warlord?"

"It gives a summary, but d'Ambry was the greatest of Roland's generals, he's in charge of the Iron Dogs," Richard says, closing the door again and he paces the office as she reads. "If he's down, then the Iron Dogs will be in disarray, they'll be chomping at the bit to be the next top dog, to prove themselves to Roland. It'll be a bit of chaos, but with a handful of possible successors fighting to prove themselves."

"So, we're looking at a possible attack?" she asks, grasping his thoughts.

"I think they will focus on Atlanta and Alaska," he says with a shake of his own head. "Curran has pissed them off, by taking out Hugh, and Alaska has more land. We're still just on the edge of their vision. This will help the contract, I think."

"Panacea," Tasha says as she sets down the scroll, then walks over and embraces Richard again, kissing him fully as the realization hits her again. "No more loupism, no more mercy killings. All our kids will have normal lives."

"And others in town will have a real reason to stop fearing us," he says with a nod as they break apart, smiling like an idiot. "Something tangible, instead of just our word that we will keep them safe. Once we have it, we can spread the knowledge, and we can strengthen our hold on this age of man even more."

Tasha strokes his face with her own smile, "My love, you think like a Khan, of the dynasty before you. Stop and enjoy this, realize what this really means. We will have a family soon, one that we can keep healthy and safe, no matter what."

He stares at her blue eyes, captivated again as he pulls his thoughts from the future of his people to the future of him and her. He kisses her tenderly, softly, and runs his fingers through her braided hair with a smile as he meets her eyes again.

"We have a family now," he says with a crooked smile. "Two daughters and all of the Horde."

"I want kids who are _ours_ ," she says with her own fierce smile, her eyes flashing gold. "Children of you and me," she says with a more serious expression. "The tech is still here, and Mischa is willing to carry them to term, as I cannot."

"Invitro," Richard says with a nod of understanding.

"Our own kids, _ours_ ," she says with a smile, kissing him again. "After the tech is gone, we won't be able to, but now, now we can, while the tech is still here."

He kisses her and holds her tight, his thoughts on the future of his family… _His_ family.

Autumn carefully walks up the steps on the side of the barn in the Bastion. A message had been sent that her brother needed to talk to her, but she was running her shop solo today, and couldn't get away until now, in the evening. So she'd come here to visit family and see Richard, who is on the roof of the barn with his wife and daughters. She smiles as she reaches the roof and looks at the assembled family there, all lounging on the matted platform with platters of food in front of them.

If you'd asked her a year ago if her brother would ever settle down, she would have laughed and declared never. Instead, he's sitting and laughing with his wife and two adopted children while overlooking a fort that contains hundreds of shapeshifters he is responsible for. It had taken her a while, but she understands now, and accepts what he is and is capable of. More than anything, though, he's happy, and this life he has found suits him, more than anything ever has, it looks like.

"Hey little brother," she says with a smile as she walks across the roof to the platform. She reaches into her shoulder bag and pulls out two brown paper wrapped packages and tosses them at the two girls. The shapeshifter children catch them with ease and rip the paper off, revealing books for each of them.

"Thanks, Aunty A," Jocelyn says as she bounces to her feet and runs over to give her a hug. "I just finished the last one in the series."

"Please tell me it's not that old vampire series," Richard says with a well suffering sigh. "Vampires do not sparkle."

"No," Autumn says with a shake of her head. "That series makes me think of stalkers and Stockholm syndrome, actually. This is the Eragon series."

"I'm on Brisinger," Jocelyn says with a smile as she shows the cover to Richard and Tasha and she sits again, Autumn giving Richard and Tasha quick hug, then Maddie.

"Mine's a history of Rome," Maddie says with a sigh and a frown. "I'm trying to get into the Advanced Placement class next semester. Thanks, Aunt A, I need a better reference than what they give at school."

"We'll talk it over too," Autumn says as she sits cross legged, getting used to the habits of her brother and his family. "Do some knitting and review. The book can be dry, and I know a fair amount of Roman history."

"I'll help, too," Richard offers, then looks to Autumn. "And I don't know if you'll be here to help her much, if you say yes to a request I'm making to you."

"What's the request?" she asks with a frown at him and narrowed eyes. "From the Horde or from you?"

"Both," Richard says with a look at Tasha.

"Do you know what panacea is?" Tasha asks, tilting her own head as she looks at the older woman.

Autumn blinks and looks to the night sky as she combs through her memories, idly pushing her long brown hair behind an ear. She frowns and tilts her head, then blinks and looks at them both with comprehension, then frowns.

"It's a magical medicine used to help treat loupism," she says with a tight frown and shake of her head. "I don't know how to make it, no one on the continent does, from what I remember. Maybe Odin and I could try and research it…"

"The Atlanta Pack has the recipe and preparation process," Richard says, interrupting her, and she blinks in surprise.

"Really?" she says, re-evaluating, then nodding. "Are they willing to share?"

"We can send them two, to get training on it," he says looking at her, and she nods immediately.

"When do I leave?" she asks, pulling out a notebook from her brown leather messenger bag, her gray cloak pushed back revealing a brown knit sweater.

"As soon as you are ready," he says. "William and a group will take you and Bridgette to Atlanta, then back. It looks like you should be able to learn the basics in a week or so, say a month total to give yourselves a buffer."

"I'll talk to Atticus about running the shop while I'm gone," she says, writing notes in her book.

"He's here, with his family, we've done a Horde recall," Tasha says, gesturing to the large groups of shapeshifters in the Bastion.

"Which is tiresome and annoying," Maddie says with a sigh into the adult's conversation, looking up from the history book she has been skimming. Jocelyn is on her stomach reading her book and idly munching on her plate of food.

"Why do they have to be here, anyway?" Jocelyn asks, looking up from her book. "Is there something bad about to happen?"

"To bad people, yes," Richard says with a nod. "There are some bad men in town, and I'm taking some people with the local law enforcement, and we're going to get rid of them. I brought everyone here so that while I'm gone with most of our security, they can be safe until I get back."

"What kind of bad guys?" Maddie asks quietly, holding the book to her chest now, a pensive expression on her face.

"Bad men that are not so different from the types that I had to take care of when we first met," he says with a tight smile, refusing to lie to them, even though it will be tough.

Jocelyn's feet are kicking absently in the air over her legs as she tilts her head on her hands and looks at Richard with an expression that fits better on an adult, not a child.

"You're going to kill them, right?" she asks in a totally serious tone, her face firm and blank. "Like you did to those men who took me."

"Most likely, yes," Richard says with a nod. "The Mayor and Governor have agreed and have asked for my help. They can't stop the bad men without my help. And the longer the bad men go untouched, the more innocent people will suffer and die."

Jocelyn reaches out her hand from her position next to him in a fist and a smile of her own, "Stack 'em up like cordwood, Rick."

Richard chuckles and fist bumps her with a bemused expression, "Where did you hear that expression?"

"I heard Alex use it, when he told us about the wolves you fought in downtown," Jocelyn says as she goes back to her reading. "Said that's what you did to them when they attacked the Order."

Richard laughs and leans down, putting a kiss on her head as she reads and picks up another piece of cheese from her plate. Autumn is shaking her head with a sigh while Tasha smirks crookedly at the odd family she has.

It's been a couple days since Autumn had left, and Richard is in the last of the preparations for the attack on Black Market Alley. He has been busy doing the details and coordinating, and his two adopted children have grown restless and curious in his absence.

"I don't know if this is a good idea," Jocelyn says as she and Maddie creep down the stairs from the first floor of the cabin that leads into the complicated tunnels under the Bastion.

"He won't let us watch him gear up and get ready for the fight," Maddie says with a shake of her head. "Mischa says that he has full armor for all his forms, human, animal and warrior forms. She said that the Pride tricked it out to look cool, too. I want to see it, and you know you do, too."

"He'll know we were here," Jocelyn says with a nervous glance over her shoulder up the stairs as they go to the armory just under the cabin.

"He'll be too busy with work to follow through," Maddie says as she stops in front of the door, narrowing her eyes at the lock on it.

"See, we can't even get in," Jocelyn says with a wave at the lock.

Maddie squats in front of the lock and pulls out a pair of narrow metal picks from her back pocket, and starts to fiddle with the lock. Her tongue is sticking out as she concentrates on the feel of the metal picks in the lock.

"When did you learn to pick a lock?" Jocelyn asks in an amazed tone as she watches her big sister turn the lock with a click and the door pops open.

"I asked Joachim to teach me," she says as she eases the door open and they step into the room with awed expressions.

The room is filled with weapons on racks along the walls, a stand with a half dozen bows on it, and another rack with three different sized crossbows. The two girls step into the room slowly as they drink in the sight of all the deadly weaponry arrayed around them. Bins line one corner, stacked at an angle and with hundreds of arrows organized in them, next to it is a rack with various ropes on it, and next to that a shelf with nothing but short swords and axes on it. The focus of the room, however, are the three standing racks in the center of the room towards the back end, full sets of Asian style armor.

One is standard armor for a human, with belts and attachment points for weapons and equipment, and the one on the opposite side is sized and designed for a tiger, obvious as it sits on a wooden tiger that has even been carved to show a muzzle and ears. The third and center one is a wooden statue of a warrior formed were-tiger wearing what can only be described as samurai armor.

"Holy… shit…" Maddie says, staring at the warrior form armor with a blank expression and her mouth hanging open.

"He's the Khan," Jocelyn says in a rising giddy tone. "He really is a Khan! How cool is that!"

"What are you two doing down here?" Tasha asks from the doorway where she had silently padded down from the cabin.

The two girls jump in surprise and have backed away from the door in reflexive terror as their hearts beat frantically. They are breathing deep as Jocelyn covers her mouth with both hands and Maddie has a hand to her chest in an effort to control her racing heart.

"We, uh," Maddie says, collecting her thoughts. "We were looking around, and the door was unlocked."

"I can smell it when you lie, remember?" Tasha says with a frown at the two girls, gesturing out of the room. "How did you get in the room?" she asks as she glances at the lock then at the two girls walking in front of her.

"I jimmied it open," Maddie says simply with a shrug.

"Maddie, picks," Tasha says, holding her hand out, and the teen sighs deeply in defeat, pulling her picks out of her back pocket. "You left marks on the hole, you need to use your fingers more and center the picks, so that you don't leave marks, otherwise someone will know you tampered with the lock."

Maddie blinks in surprise as they walk up the stairs in the back of the cabin, "You know how to pick a lock?"

"Of course I do," Tasha says with a snort, gesturing them to the table, where they start making dinner. "Much better than Richard, for certain, and something I will show to you to do, much better than Joachim will."

"Oh," Maddie says dumbly, not realizing how much her adopted mother knew or was capable of.

"Why do you know how to pick a lock?" Jocelyn asks as Tasha directs them to lay out ribs and potatoes.

"I worked quite a bit for the Mercenary Guild prior to being in charge in the Pride and Horde," she says as they work. "I can work some magic, too. Though your Aunt Autumn is far better at it than I am."

"Why does Rick lock that room?" Maddie asks after a few moments. "If you both knew I could pick it."

"Locks only stop honest people," Tasha says with a frown at Maddie, who has the sense to blush in shame. "It was a test, and you failed. We're not surprised, or angry… you were going to see it eventually."

"Does he really need all that stuff?" Maddie asks with a furrowed brow as she peels potatoes, Jocelyn helping Tasha with shucking the corn. "I mean, there were a dozen spears and stuff, more arrows than I could count, and more swords and axes than I knew there were types of."

Tasha frowns in thought for a moment, but having had the discussion with Richard on how they would handle these questions when they arise, she knows how she has to answer. Richard owes her for not being here to help, though, a day at the spa sounds like a good payback for her.

"Richard has a lot of experience fighting different types of monsters and enemies," she says with a shrug of her own as she pulls the stringy shuck off a corn cob. "Not every problem can be solved the same way, you need the right tool for the job. Sometimes that's a bow and arrow, sometimes it's a spear, sometimes a sword or axe. And they often break in the fight, so he has spares, so he is never wanting in an emergency."

"What if it needs magic?" Jocelyn asks with a serious frown on her own face. "He doesn't use magic, does he?"

"You would be surprised, I think, at what he can do with magic," Tasha says with a smile of reassurance at the girl. "He doesn't prefer it, but… do you know what a First is?"

"Some of the people in the Horde have mentioned it," Maddie says as Jocelyn shakes her head negative. "They say Rick is one, but I don't know what that means."

"It means he's been chosen to be a First among Shapeshifters, kind of like an original or a founder," Tasha, trying to explain the complicated relationship and ambiguous status. "You know that magic has always existed in history, and that when people started to believe in gods and whatnot, the magic took that belief and made the gods real, right?"

"Like Thor and Odin," Jocelyn says with a bright smile. "I like Thor, but Odin is a mean old man," she says the last with a scowl, and Tasha laughs lightly at the reaction.

"Right, like them," she says with a nod. "But people didn't always have language and written records. So before we could talk to each other and tell stories about Odin and Thor, and magic making them real, what did we pray to?"

Both girls blink hard as they think over the question, and Maddie answers, speaking slowly, "Rain and wind, rivers and mountains, I guess."

"What of the animals?" Tasha asks with raised eyebrows. "Neanderthals, huddling around their fire, grunting to each other as the wolves howled in the night during a hunt. The roar of a tiger on the mountainside as is surveys its territory."

"They were afraid of them," Jocelyn says with a frown of thought.

"They respected them," Tasha corrects her, tapping her nose with a smile. "They respected them, and wished they had the strength of the wolf, the courage of the tiger, the power of the lion. And the magic answered them, and gave them that power. The Firsts."

"So, Rick is from the magic?" Maddie says with a confused frown as she pauses in peeling potatoes. "I don't get it."

"There's no easy way to explain it," Tasha says with a shrug. "Aunt Autumn could probably explain it better, but before Richard was infected with LycV, he had no magic at all. Now, he has it in abundance, but he has very little training. He has the potential to do enormous things with magic, but his training is all martial, not magical."

"So Rick can use magic, if he has to," Maddie says with a slowly dawning light. "I didn't know that. What kind of magic?"

"Just a few protection spells, healing, that's all I know of," Tasha says with a shrug. "He doesn't advertise what he can do, he likes to keep his opponents guessing. But I have seen him conjure fire from nothing, and I know Autumn is teaching him as well."

"That's cool," Jocelyn says with a smile. "I want to see him in the armor, for his warrior form. It looks awesome."

Tasha smiles and laughs at the simple childish awe in her voice.

"When he first made it, it was black with some gray mixed in, no ornaments and bland," she says with a scowl and shake of her head. "I couldn't stand for that, so, we fixed it."

"It looks good now," Maddie says with a nod of appreciation. "Red silk and highlights on the armor, and the tiger, fire and ice designs on the plates are awesome."

"Silk is only on the warrior form armor, the other two are linen and cotton," Tasha says with a shake of her head. "Silk will not tear easily, so if he is wearing it in human form, he can't shift, or he will actually hurt himself more, broken bones and what not. Silk prevents punctures, and has saved his life more than once in warrior form when using the armor."

"Will he wear it on this job he's doing, with the Rangers and the Order?" Maddie asks, forcing a blank, disinterested expression, though she is worried inside, and Tasha recognizes it, as she often feels the same.

"I hope so, but he likely will not," she says with a sigh. "I'll try to make him wear the full human armor, but he only goes warrior form in extreme emergencies or contracts. He can't use a bow or a gun while that big, and he is very good with both, so he prefers to start in human form, then shift after all his weapons are broken or lost."

"Has that ever happened before, when he lost or broke all his weapons?" Maddie says, a surprised expression on her face.

"More often than he'll ever admit," she says with a theatrical roll of her eyes. "He fought a Russian outside the front gates, started with a bow, ended with nothing but his kurki in hand. Ten minutes start to finish."

"Wow," Maddie says with a blink, Jocelyn grinning as she picks up the bowl of shucked corn and going to the sink at Tasha's direction.

"Let's get these ribs on the grill," Tasha says with a gesture to the three trays of meat, the vegetables set up and almost ready to cook. "Richard will be home in a little over an hour, and this needs to be ready, so he can eat, dress and then go to work. It's a big night tonight."

"Rick's going after all of the Mobs on Black Market Alley?" Maddie says with a dubious expression. "Can he really do that?"

"Alone, it's doubtful," Tasha says as they all carry a tray outside to where Nita is poking the coals in the charcoal grill off of the porch. "But he's working with the Order, the Rangers, and even some guys from the Army National Guard. I think they'll be okay."

Richard sighs in resignation as Tasha looks at him with a stubborn expression and crossed arms, Maddie and Jocelyn on either side of her in mirrored stances and expressions. The Alpha male of nearly a thousand shapeshifters, the most dangerous, feared man in all of Texas, and he can't win a simple argument about work with his wife and kids.

"I'm telling you, it's not necessary," he tries one last time, his hands open in front of him. "I'm Command and Control, I probably won't even see any fighting, much less be needed in the line. Noel is coming with fifty of our best shapeshifters, the Rangers are bringing in half the entire force in the county, including the SWAT teams. The Governor sent a small Company of National Guard Infantrymen, and the Order of Merciful Aid is sending their entire Chapter. I'm really just there to watch and juggle assets."

"So then there's no harm in wearing it," she argues with an arched eyebrow. "It's better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it."

He sighs, knowing she's quoting him, and he tosses his hands up in defeat in the living room, "Fine, I'll go put it on when I get to Hoffman's, before going to the link up site."

"It's waiting by the barn," Tasha says, pointing that way. "We've already laid it out, and we're going to help you into it."

Richard blinks at her with a frown, "I said I would wear it, you know I won't go back on that."

"I don't doubt you will," Tasha says, taking his arm and guiding him outside. "But the girls got into your armory today, and were asking questions. I want them to see you decked out for war."

He sighs, shaking his head, "Did they break the lock or pick it?"

"It was a sloppy pick job, not bad, but left marks," Tasha says absently.

"Joachim is used to forcing his way through it, too much muscle and not enough finesse," Richard says with a shake of his head. "I presume that's who taught you, Maddie?"

"Yes, sir," she says with a frown and a pout.

"Tasha or I will show you how to do it right, though to be honest, she is better at it than I am," he says as they all walk to the barn, where his gear is laid out next to the gravity shower. "I have a tendency to just hit it hard or blow it up, subtlety wasn't my strong suit."

Richard looks around at the arrayed armor and clothing on the cold autumn day, automatically categorizing the gear present and what he had wanted to take with him on the contract. He nods at the set of weapons arrayed on the picnic table next to the armor laid out on the ground, two pistols, a rifle and his usual bladed weapons, expecting to hit the Alley with the tech up. He pulls his vest off and then starts to pull off his clothes while the girls all grab his pants, shirts and jackets under Tasha's direction. Soon he is clothed in three layers of linen robes and sashes, and they begin to affix plates of blood red, black and gray plates of armor on his body.

Periodically he twists and shifts, testing the way everything sits so that he can still move properly, and soon he is fully armored. He accepts his heavy weapons belt with the Gladius, Axe, daggers and Kurki on it, then strapping other blades on his person. He then straps the pistols in place with reloads, finishing with slinging an AR-10, a .308 semi-automatic rifle, to his side and again tests the movement, to ensure there is no binding or restrictions.

"The guns look weird," Maddie says with a furrowed brow and twist of her head, then a nod. "But it looks right. You added red accents on the plastic, I think that's why it doesn't look wrong, just odd."

"He had it in brown and green, which totally clashed with the armor," Tasha says with a shake of her head as she steps up to him and grabs the edges of his breastplate. "If the Khan is ready to go forward into glorious battle?" she asks sweetly with a shake of her head, then leaning forward and kissing him.

He returns the kiss with a laugh and a smile, then accepting his Roman style helmet from Jocelyn, "Thank you, ladies, for the help. But as my beautiful wife has mentioned, I have a battle to oversee."

"Go kick ass, Rick," Maddie says with a smile, giving him a fist bump, as does Jocelyn as he turns from them to the horse waiting for him at the front gate.

Chief Roberts and Knight Protector Reynolds are in the mobile command post two blocks from where their teams will be entering the Alley for the raid. The last four days have been a flurry of activity and coordination between them and Richard's people. Though Roberts is unsurprised at the level of Richard's competence, the others have been constantly astounded, including Reynolds, and the National Guard Colonel who feels insulted at not being put in charge. Now all three of those leaders are in the old corner store, an abandoned husk in this area and hastily commandeered for their use.

Richard dismounts outside of the shop, rifle held out to his side, then in a tactical carry in front of him as he enters the CP, the other leaders doing a double take on him. Roberts wears leather jacket and ballistic vest, pistol on his side and a lever action .44 magnum rifle slung over a shoulder, the Knight Protector in her usual gray leather, longsword and an AR15 slung at her side. The Colonel is in camouflage and with a pistol on his thigh, no rifle, and his frown deepens as he looks at Richard. Richard's armor is dark red and black, with black, red and gray linen under it, weapons strapped to his person and the rifle held easily in his hands, all while moving easily and surely under the nearly hundred pounds of gear and armor.

"I didn't think you were going to go on point," the Colonel says with a scowl at Richard.

"I don't plan to, but better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it," he intones, resting his hands on the rifle that hangs across his chest by its strap.

"If the shit hits the fan, you'll be glad he brought it all," Roberts says with a solid nod to the Colonel, both around the same age. Reynolds frowns but nods agreement of the statement.

"My people are at their jump off positions," Richard says solidly, looking at the other leaders. "And I have a few Vikings mixed in with my teams. Specifically, I have Thor and the Ragnarsons with the point team, where we expect the most resistance."

"A human face, with heavy magic backup should the tech fall," Roberts says with a nod, glancing at his pocketwatch. "Magic fell two hours ago, we should be good for the raid, it's unlikely that the tech will crash for another four hours, at least."

"My people are holding a perimeter, and on your call, we'll move in to the blocking positions," the Colonel says with a nod to Richard who is in overall command of the contract, the mission. "We've managed to get our observers in without being seen, and we'll roll in loud and hard once we get the word. No one will break the cordon without a tank or a dragon."

"Don't say stuff like that," Richard says with an involuntary scowl at the mention of a tank. "Any issues with the Rangers or Order?"

"None," Reynolds says with a glance at Roberts. "We've integrated our people with yours, and gone through the rehearsals as best we could with the time we had. All the teams have a mix of humans, shapeshifters and magic users, six sections conducting the raid, focusing on the major target areas we discussed. We're all ready to go."

"Then let's kick this pig," Richard says, squeezing the hand mike of his radio and calling to all his people the code-word. "Irene, I say again, Irene."

Richard listens the radio chatter with internal tension he refuses to allow the other leaders to see. Leading from the front, kicking doors down and doing something came naturally to him, this sitting around and watching while sending his people into harm's way, this sucks. He takes a centering breath and pulls his waterskin from his side and takes a drink, his posture and expression nonchalant.

Thor leads the team that runs down the center of the Alley, blowing past two other target buildings before turning and trotting up to a door for the warehouse that belongs to the Triads. He pauses, his 12 gauge automatic shotgun leveled at the door as he gestures to it with his chin. Jark Ragnarson, his two hundred pound muscular frame covered in heavy armor and weapons, charges the door and tackles it at a run, shattering the hinges. The young man falls inside and sprawls out in a prone firing position as the others in the team simply trample over and around him, not waiting for him to regain his feet.

Thor is on point again, and he slows his jog to a fast walk then a slow walk and stops as he studies the warehouse in detail. Tables are empty and abandoned, chairs overturned, curtains blowing slightly and giving a desolated feel to it. He begins to curse, but sees a large figure deeper in the huge store room, a vast space with a ceiling twenty yards high, big windows and a concrete floor four hundred yards by a hundred. He jogs with the others to the huge figure, kneeling in the center, and a huge man judging by his size.

Thor slows and the team circles around him, ten shapeshifters, himself and the two Ragnarsons, as well as one of the Knights from the Order. All form a semicircle around the kneeling figure, half aiming at it, with the others looking for outward threats. The figure is hulking in size, likely seven feet or more in height, and wide with plates on it, or armor, it is hard to tell in the dark and gloom. Thor's disappointment dissipates, realizing that this creature will not surrender, will not submit. He will do battle this day.

"Raise your hands where I can see them!" Thor shouts at the figure, having rehearsed the rules and laws of this land over and over with his father. "Raise them now!"

The figure raises its head, turning it slightly to look over its thick, massive shoulder at Thor, and a spark of red light flashes from the eye.

"You are not he," the figure says, not the expected deep bass for a figure that size, but a strangled sound, rasping in an echoing chamber, and Thor can see that a mask covers the lower half of its face.

"I am Thor, son of Odin," the Thunderer responds with his own scowl at the thing in the dim warehouse, the clouds overhead breaking and the nearly full moon shining light into the warehouse. "Raise your hands or we will fire."

"It is too late for that," the figure says as it raises its head, showing the dull metal that covers its face from the nose down over its jaw.

The magic suddenly rises in the night, the tech dropping from the world unexpectedly. Thor pulls the sling over his head and tosses the rifle away, pulling Mjolnir from his belt without hesitation. The others are taken by surprise at the change from tech to magic, and hesitate before dropping their rifles and going to more mundane weapons. A gust of wind crashes from outside into the windows, shattering them all and throwing broken glass through the open area. The glass whips around and slices, and the shapeshifters and humans around Thor scream as they are cut hundreds of times.

Thor raises his own hammer and redirects the wind and storm, pushing the glass away from the humans in the group, knowing they are most susceptible.

"Ragnarsons, go!" he calls out, waving vaguely behind himself as Floki picks up the badly wounded man from the Order. "Tell Richard it was a trap, this one is mine, but the others will need help."

The two Vikings drag the wounded man with them as the remaining shapeshifters pull their own swords, axes and knives from their belts as they spread out around the massive figure still kneeling on the stone floor. The wind is still spinning around, but the glass has dissipated away, and the mix of human and warrior form shapeshifters move at Thor's direction as they circle their enemy.

"This is your last chance," Thor bellows over the wind, holding Mjolnir to the side as a small lance of lightning licks out from it to the ground.

"No, that was a long time ago," the figure says and rises, lunging in Thor's direction in one fluid motion.

A mace, the head of which is the size of the figure's huge head, and larger even then Mjolnir, flies out in a blur and strikes Thor in the chest, sending him flying backwards and through the wall fifty yards distant. The figure is revealed, standing eight feet tall, a massive, leonine head on his broad shoulders and thick waist, with feet below his knees formed in eagle's talons. The shapeshifters attack, moving in a coordinated attack fashion that Richard has insisted all members of the Horde were to learn if they wanted to be part of the warrior caste. They stab and slash as pairs or trios, coordinating their attacks so as to keep their opponent off balance and reeling, and to win.

But their coordination and training count for nothing as the huge monstrous figure moves on liquid joints like one born to the martial arts. His gestures and the movements are accompanied with gusts of wind, which hit the shapeshifters as though struck by a truck. Before they can get in range, they are hit so hard their bones break and shatter, even with armor. The two that get close enough to actually strike the figure are dealt with brutally and efficiently, one's head being grabbed in a massive foot talon in a kick and crushed like a melon. The other's blade skips off the steel plate of the figure's thigh, and the monster grasps the werewolf's spine in hand and crushes it in an instant.

The wind dies away as the monster steps easily over the shattered bodies of his dead and dying opponents, raising his hand as he walks to where Thor had disappeared in the wall. The mace returns to his hand, a cylindrical stone two feet high and eight inches across, a long handle that is five feet long for his massive hands to grip easily. Thor stumbles through the gap in the wall, falling to a knee to the side, Mjolnir hanging from his wrist by the leather thong. His Modern tactical vest is in shambles on his chest, and his jeans are covered with shattered brick and dust.

"Monster," Thor croaks, anger covering his face as he regains his feet. "You will pay for their deaths."

"I am Ugallu," the monster says, spreading his arms wide, exposing a breastplate and plate armor over a leather kilt. "I am the bane of weather for thousands of years, child. A demon spawned by the god-man father of all. You are but a puppy to me."

Thor curls his lip at the monster as it stops ten yards away, "You are a demon, you say. I am a GOD!"

Thor raises his hammer high and lightning crashes down through the roof, shattering the building beams and cracking the stones and pavement beneath their feet. Ugallu raises his own mace to deflect the lighting, and after a moment, the two embodiments of the storm charge each other with weapons raised high.

Richard curses silently as the radio dies in his ear, and he turns immediately to the door and window of the shop. He walks outside while dropping his rifle and pistols idly, stripping the extra ammo as well while tilting his head to listen to the distance outside. He hears nothing, no gunfire, as the magic crashed into the world and left all firearms useless. Then he hears a crack of lightning, a gusting of wind, and he knows that Thor is letting power off the chain, battling something. He purses his lips nervously, the Alley blocks away, and him not in a position to directly affect the raid. He is unsure if he should close with where the fight is, but as a thick bolt of lightning crashes down into the Alley, Richard starts running, realizing that Thor has completely let loose with everything he has.

He enters the entrance of the Alley, trotting past a team that is pulling back with half of their dozen members wounded, the shapeshifters the worst off in the groups as they tried to protect the humans. He gets there as the Ragnarsons arrive with an unconscious man from the Order between them and with a tourniquet on his arm.

"A monster with power over wind attacked us," Floki says, carrying the man past Richard who has paused to assess where to go next. "The Odinson said he will handle it, to help the others. Our foe knew we were coming, it was a trap."

"I've gathered as much," Richard says absently, looking around as he localizes the sound of the most conflict. "Evacuate everyone, we're aborting. I'm going to the front to help the exfil."

He sprints to the nearest target building, where the group of casualties he had met came from, and where the other team next door had gone to assist. He enters the nearly deserted warehouse, tables and chairs strewn about with the wares gone, but now with bodies and blood sprawled about as well. He runs down the length of the warehouse to where a nine foot tall monster is swinging angrily at four shapeshifters. The shapeshifters are darting in and out, all werewolves, all trained in the method of picking at your prey and taking it down as a group.

Richard arrives and dashes right at the massive figure, planting a hard side kick into its side while it is ducking another attack, and sending it back ten yards to crack the stone floor before rising with a roar at Richard. He pauses as he studies his opponent, who looks a lot like a Yeti with brown hair and wearing plate armor. Richard pulls his sword and axe from his belt, activating the flame and frost of the weapons, and glances at where the now three werewolves are beside him, ready to continue the fight.

"Has it spoken?" Richard asks.

"Not a word," the lead werewolf says, his own eyes flashing blue in the dim light of the moon, wearing his warrior form with leather armor. "He smells like a shapeshifter, but wrong. He stinks of loupism."

"We end him," Richard says, and the four move forward and spread out.

Rather than attack rashly and at risk, they are meticulous and careful, baiting the monster, ducking and giving attacks of opportunity to each other. Their attacks complement each other, and within a few minutes that stretch by, the monster is gasping and struggling through the blood loss. Richard darts in, his sword flicking out in a flash and severs the beast's throat, rolling out of the way of a massive paw, then watching the creature collapse and die. A moment passes, and the creature shifts form into a man, draped in the overly large clothing and armor.

"A were-gorilla, I think," Richard says with a frown of thought at the body.

"You, Richard Michaels, are _precisely_ as advertised," a deep, scratchy voice rings out from the darkness to the side of where the moonlight spills into the open area of the warehouse.

Richard turns cautiously to the sound of the voice as a man steps into the dim light. He is six feet tall, solid build and athletic, flexible and moving with a fighter's grace. He wears black and red silk robes, looking like a ninja, but with a three bladed iron dagger in his hand. One hand is tucked in the front of his sash, and his face is obscured in a helmet that hugs his face tightly like a second skin. The helmet is cold iron, flat black and looks like a demonic clown with short horns and an evil grin on it.

"Who are you?" Richard asks, feeling the weight of the man's magic as he approaches.

"I am Tiamat," the man says as he walks wide around them, and Richard circles the man with the lycanthropes at his back. "I come bearing chaos and discord on behalf of my master, the one you are unworthy to serve, _creature_."

"Good thing I'm not applying for a job, then," Richard says with a frown as he studies the man's movements. "I like my current job, doing pretty good at it, I think."

"I was sent to test you, and destroy you," Tiamat says as he pauses, raising his left hand and cutting it with the dagger, dripping blood on the floor.

"~~~~," he says, shoving power into the word of the ancient language of magic.

Richard raises his own defenses against whatever spell and power is being used, Autumn teaching him more refinement to his own brute power magic approach. But the magic isn't aimed at him, but at the wolves at his side, and they suddenly howl at the moon and fall to their knees. The stink hits his nose almost instantly, the stench of loupism, and the lycanthropes raise insane eyes at Richard from feet away. He reacts without any hesitation, though in his mind he is raging in anger at what is about to do.

He lunges, chops and slices with his axe and sword, cutting down the three lycanthropes in the matter of under a minute, as they do not hesitate to attack him, and he is trying to minimize his own injuries. When the third is down, Richard turns back to where Tiamat stands, having remained in place while he had fought, breathing deep and his inner beast wanting to rend and tear the man. Tiamat tilts his head to the side, obviously studying Richard further.

"You cut down your own people without a second's thought," the man says in a sing song voice, an accent Richard places as some sort of European, but unable to name it. "You are truly one worthy of tests and trials, though you will lose, in the end."

"Heard that before," Richard says, moving forward, towards the man with his weapons up.

"This time is different," the man says as he attacks Richard, and they trade attacks, parries and blocks. "This time, my master has sent me, and has decreed you shall be destroyed."

The man manages a cut across Richard's left elbow, and his gladius spins off into the distance. Richard reacts properly to the follow up, catching the man's right hand with the dagger by the wrist. The man grabs Richard's cut elbow with his own open wound on his left hand, and shoves his shoulder into Richard's solar plexus, dazing him slightly.

"But first you shall be tested," Tiamat says harshly, then pouring power into his next word. "~~~~~."

Richard screams, roars at the night as the flames consume his being, and his vision is lost. Magic races through his blood, through his body, and he collapses as his inner beast shoves itself out of his core. The cage in his soul resists, and Richard feels his bones snap and crack as the prison within himself fails and his inner beast takes control, roaring at the moon. A monster kneels where the Khan had stood, roaring at the night.

Thor staggers to the side as his blow from Mjolnir misses his opponent, but he sets himself and strikes again. Mjolnir strikes the demon's mace solidly, and Thor grins as the weapon chips again, nearly half of the stone head missing since the bout began. The monster is losing, and it is raging further as it realizes that it cannot defeat the son of Odin. Thor ducks under a thrust from the mace and lands a crushing uppercut strike to the steel mask with Mjolnir, and the guard spins off into the gloom.

The monster staggers back and Thor leaps high as he brings Mjolnir down hard on the demon's skull. The hammer of the gods cracks the bone, and the creature slumps back, limp in death. Thor stands over his smited foe for a long moment, then works up his mouth and spits on its body in disgust.

He staggers for a moment, then forces himself to a trot as he goes back to the main street through the remains of the building. He is jogging to where the rally point is, his chest bare and jeans in tatters, but he pauses near the head of the street as he hears roars of agony coming from a warehouse to the side, one of the target buildings. He trots to the open door and takes in the sight of the scattered bodes of shapeshifters, now still as death and in human form. But what draws his attention is the snapping, snarling and roaring figure a hundred yards distant.

He runs that way and slows ten yards away as his eyes finally reveal the tableau before him. A figure is on its knees, torn and shredded clothing scattered around it, repeatedly punching and clawing at the ground. As he slows to a stop, the head whips around, and Thor recognizes the stripes on the enlarged cat-like head, though the body is disproportionate and mis-shaped.

"Friend Richard," Thor says cautiously, his mind catching up to the fact that the Khan of the Horde seems to have succumbed to loupism. "Calm yourself, I am a friend."

The eyes are glaring at him, though, and all he can see is rage and insanity within the depths of the eyes. Thor sets his feet, his expression grim as he looks at a man he respects and wishes no harm to, but knowing he must stop him before innocents are hurt. But the beast doesn't pounce, it only raises its arms and slams it into the ground again, shattering stone and roaring again at the ground and curling it's huge hands into fists. Its eyes are screwed shut, and it breathes deep and hard, then looks at Thor again, orange light flashing as it does.

The flash reveals a moment of sanity, a spark of humanity, then the monster roars again, and Thor realizes it is barely contained. Somehow, Richard has lost control, but refuses to let the monster loose. Thor sets his own jaw firmly, and strides forward confidently as the monstrous were-tiger glares at him from a cage made of will alone. Thor raises his hammer and strikes hard on his the Khan's shoulder, then his knees and legs, and the beast takes the beating, accepts the punishment as it roars in anger at the night. So close to freedom, and yet so far.

Tasha bursts into the safe house near Hoffman Resources, the closest Horde safe house with a loup cage strong enough to hold Richard. She can smell her mate, but she also recognizes the wrongness of it, the defect, as she pushes past everyone standing around, the survivors from the attack on the Alley. She drops down the stairs to the basement and stops as she comes into view of the cage, clenching her jaw as she looks at him.

His warrior form is usually proportionate, like an artist's rendering, but now it is a mismashed mix of human and animal, some spots bare and only skin, some parts human and others animal. Worse, he's been beaten, very badly, with shattered bones and joints on all his extremities.

"I had to, lioness," Thor says from where he sits across from the cage, a frown on his square jaw, Mjolnir sitting on the ground at his feet. "If anyone had tried to move him, he would have killed them. I had to cripple him, his body shut him down when his injuries were too much, and I brought him here."

"He'll heal," she forces herself to say. "Autumn will be back with panacea, and he will get better."

"Lady," Thor says with a pensive expression, glancing around at the empty basement, only he and her present. "Magic caused this, not his loss of control."

Tasha frowns as she digests that, "Magic did this, how?"

"I do not know, but even as it gripped him, he fought to keep the beast at bay," Thor says with a frown but nod of admiration. "I could see the monster straining to rend and tear, but he forced himself to sit. He let me beat him, he held still as I crushed his bones. He could not control it, but he refused to let it go. His mind is not yet lost, I think."

Tasha looks at her shattered and disfigured mate in the cage, an IV running to his splinted arm, heavy chains and straps holding him to the cot in the cage. She pushes the image of him away, and turns to Thor, her own thoughts now on her people, and the plan ahead.

"Thor, I trust you, and I need your help," she says solidly, and he rises to his feet with a nod. "Will you escort those who will take my husband back to the Bastion? If something were to go wrong, I know you will do what you have to in order to stop him, and you are one of the few I think capable of stopping him if he is unleashed."

"I shall, my lady," he says with a nod, glancing at Richard's unconscious form. "But what then?"

"I'll take care of that," she says with a growl of her own and a gold flash in her eyes.

She turns from the thunder god, not realizing she had just bossed around a god, and up the stairs to where her people are gathered. She stops in the main dining room, where the assembled small group leaders are at, four of the six remaining. They all straighten and nod their respect to her, though their morale is shot right now. Others of the Horde had come to support those on the contract, and the house is full to bursting with shapeshifters.

"Hermano, take four others, and with Thor, you will take the Khan back to the Bastion to be treated when his sister returns," she orders firmly, not a quaver in her voice, and she looks around at the defeated group of fighters.

She sneers angrily as she continues, "I know many are asking what the Khan would do, were he well. What would he want us to do next? I am not the Khan, I am his mate, and I am the Nimir-ra. I see what has happened to him, I see what happened tonight, and see it for what it truly is…"

She lets that sink in for a moment, then her eyes flash gold as she continues, "This is a declaration of war! From the underbelly of the city, the scum and criminals, the mafia and cartels, the real monsters of the city. We were going to lock them up, push them out, and they set an ambush for the Khan with monsters and vile creatures to kill and maim."

She is snarling the words now, anger heating her voice as she speaks, sixty pairs of shapeshifter ears in the building hearing every word and nodding with her passion.

"The Khan has negotiated, has bartered and worked with the law enforcement of the city, state and country to keep us legitimate," Tasha says, glancing around at the group and walking into the next room as she gives the speech. "But that law has failed, the Rangers and the Order are reeling and we have been hurt. But we are the _Horde_ , and the time for talk and half measures are over. If they thought the Khan was to be feared, they will see now what happens when you threaten the Lioness!"

She is roaring now, and the other shapeshifters' jaws are firm as they look to her, "All hail fighters are to gather now. Send word to the Order and the Rangers, tell them to board the windows and lock the doors. The first ones to pay are the Triads, then we go visit the Sicilians."

She stalks to the front door, and the assembled shapeshifters follow her out, fifty angry fighters from the failed raid on the Alley and an assortment of additional members of the Horde filling out the number.

Tasha strides down the middle of the four lane street, her beast barely held in check as she leads a group of shapeshifters, now nearly a hundred strong. She had started walking towards the head of the Triads, a Chinese family located on the east side of town. As she walked, more members of the Horde had joined those she had left the safehouse with, near mid-town. She doesn't have much of a plan, really, she knows that most of those with her know how to fight, Richard forced them to learn how to fight smart.

She knows the team and section leaders from the raid are here and can keep the others under control and in line. Right now, with her mate laid up in a coma and affected by magic, her rational mind has laid out the options to her. They retreat, lick their wounds, and regroup, but then the organized crime gets a chance to push ahead and gain ground the law has taken. If they try to hold, they won't be able to, with the Rangers and Order having taken a hit. So they have to push forward, attack and establish full dominance in the city, or else the lowlife and criminals will come out on top.

She smirks to herself as she turns the last corner towards the Triad's neighborhood. It feels Viking, in that when the chips are down, and they are backed against the wall, they attack at dawn. Her eyes flash gold as the front gate of the Triad's mansion comes into view, and she adjusts her jacket to allow her sabre to be easily accessible on her hip. She can see the sentries on the gatehouse, and other roving patrols on the roof and the perimeter, and she slows then stops in her stride, looking to the other Horde leaders beside her.

"Thomas," she says to the wolf alpha who is standing beside her in warrior form, his clothing gone when he had shifted at the safe house, joining them after the contract. "Take a group of ten, circle the building, ensure no one escapes. Jay, take two dozen, take out the perimeter guard. Noel, group the others in sections a dozen strong, that will be the main force to take the property."

"We will lose people, in an assault," Noel cautions in his rough voice, his black shirt and leather vest scuffed from the events of the night.

"We will lose more if we let them think they can attack us without retribution," she growls in response, and they all nod in assent, hurrying about their tasks.

Tasha just stands and glares at the front gates of the Triad headquarters, eager to bring vengeance to her enemies.

Jocelyn holds Maddie's hand as they walk into the open aired arena/stadium from the main entrance. The guards glance at each other as they walk up, books clutched to their chests as they stop in front of the pair of were-jaguars. Maddie looks up at the older men, her face firm as she stares down the guards, the one on the left in his forties who only scowls tightly, then gestures them in. The two girls walk past the guards to where a heavy steel and silver loup cage sits in the center of the arena. Richard lies on an aluminum cot in the middle of the cage, an IV in his arm and in a monstrous mis-matched body, limp on the cot.

Maddie walks to where Thor sits next to the cage in a folding chair, Mjolnir sitting on the ground in front of him and a cooler at his side. He is drinking a beer with a cold plate of ham and cheese on a folding table as he keeps vigil over the Khan. He turns from his simple meal to the two girls who approach the cage, nodding at him in greeting. He watches in silence as the two girls sit cross legged within arm's reach of the bars, then open their books to read next to the Khan.

"Eragon, Chapter one," Jocelyn begins, opening the hard covered fantasy book she had finished reading a week ago, but re-reading it aloud now to Richard.

Thor watches raptly as the older sister opens her own book on Roman history while her younger sister reads aloud to their adopted father. He slowly takes a sip of beer, but pauses in realization, and puts the alcohol away and resumes his meal, determined not to fail in his self-appointed task.

Chief Ranger Roberts stands on the balcony outside the Mayor's office, looking at the glowing skyline to the east. The raid had gone bad, he and the Order had taken heavy casualties and Rick had called the abort almost immediately. The law enforcement of the city is reeling on their heels, the National Guard Colonel is pushing to declare martial law until the Rangers and Police re-establish. Rick has disappeared, and his wife, Tasha Nash-Michaels, has gone on the offensive.

"What happened?" Miller demands from where he leans against his desk, a glass of whiskey in hand and a hard frown on his face. "You said this wouldn't happen, you and Reynolds said this was a guaranteed win."

"Bad shit happens sometimes, sir," Roberts says with a sigh, taking off his cowboy hat and tossing it to the side, then sipping the whiskey in his own glass. "The enemy gets a vote, every time. And it looks like they found out about the contract. The real question I'm asking, is who snitched?"

"As much as I hate to say it, it's not the Horde," Miller says with a growl as he takes another sip of amber liquid. "Their Lioness is not someone I want to _ever_ seriously piss off."

"Something the Triad, and now the Sicilians, will agree with you on," Roberts says, noting another glow on the night sky further south, near the docks and the Sicilians' territory. "I hope you don't plan to push them over this, not hard, anyway."

"Some minor trade sanctions, penalties, I think," the Mayor says with a sigh. "Have to in order to keep the public opinion in our favor. But it'll be a slap on the wrist. This is messier, by far, but she'll give us clean streets for three to six months, in the aftermath of this, I think."

"Nine to a year, I think," Roberts says, mentally cataloguing the damage to the Triad and the Sicilians, and the impact on the criminal element in the town. Tasha may not see all the implications and secondary effects, but when Rick gets back, he will, and he won't let them skimp on what he will be owed.

"What happened to the Khan?" Miller asks, his tone serious now and more personal.

"His people won't talk," Roberts says with a scowl. "All I know is that Thor beat the shit out of some sort of weather demon, and that Rick went in to try and extract the last of his people. Thor backed him up, and that's all I know for sure. I'm guessing he took something serious on, got hurt bad and is on the mend."

Miller snorts and looks at his whiskey, "I've been frustrated dealing with him, as a businessman and a Merc. Seeing what his wife is capable of when she's angry, I wonder what he's like when he's pissed off."

"You don't ever want to see that, trust me," Roberts says into the night, the light from the south growing, his mind dredging up the two times he'd seen Rick in full on beast mode when he was human, and cringing internally at it, knowing that if you've never seen it, you wouldn't understand.

Tasha trots in through the front gates of the Bastion, exhaustion dragging at her through her bones. She's in animal form, having shifted to warrior form during their attack on the Sicilians, and weariness having her shift to animal form during the walk home. Mischa and the other seven members of her Pride are behind her, Nita in human form carrying her sabre. They and others had shown up after the Triad hit, and tagged along as they hit the Sicilians. The Russians had taken the hint and had run off before she had gotten to them, but they had left a lot of materiel behind, including human trafficking. She had detailed people to collect up everything of value and to consolidate, as well as push the rescued people to the law, and she's returned home.

She trots past the cabin and directly to the arena, slowing her stride as she recognizes the scents of her girls. She can hear Jocelyn speaking as she walks through the main entrance, and pauses as she looks on her two girls sitting next to where Richard is strapped in a cage. She walks silently behind them, and when her scent reaches them Maddie turns to look at her with a nod of greeting, Jocelyn keeps reading aloud.

Tasha bobs her head at where Thor is lounging in a folding chair, rising and grabbing Mjolnir. He nods, walking to leave them alone, aiming to catch some sleep before Tasha leaves again. Tasha lies down next to her two cubs and closes her eyes slowly as sleep and exhaustion tug at her, the last sight Richard in front of her, and the scent of her girls in her nose.

Richard can't tell time, he can't feel his feet or his arms, all he can feel is the rage and the beast within him. His body has betrayed him, but he focuses on his core, his inner being and he refuses to let go. The magic had hit him like a tsunami, irresistible and untamable. He can feel his own magic rising in response, but he hasn't the training or discipline to fight this. His inner beast roars and wants to be free, but he imposes his own iron will on his magic and refuses to let himself run rampant as a monster on the city. All he can remember of the shift was the loss of control, a brief moment where he could see the world, and Thor standing there bare-chested.

He'd clamped down hard after that, his mind focusing only on holding the beast at bay, keeping the monster in check. It has not become easier, and it had been intensely painful at the start, like his body being shattered again and again. Now he is floating in the raging storm, shoved around and thrown randomly in the hurricane, his beast gnashing its teeth and clawing the cage of Richard's willpower. Richard continues to focus and build the cage in his mind with bars of his own willpower, the slight echo of a whisper in his mind, a child's voice encouraging him.

Tasha sits in her kitchen, sipping tea and striving for calm as she breathes evenly and carefully. They'd recovered a lot of illicit materials from the attacks on Triad and Sicilians, and the abandoned warehouses from the other mob families. Richard is in a coma of his own making, the damage to his body almost entirely healed, but he refuses to wake up. She'd done her own scrying and divination when she'd woken up, and she can't deny that magic is keeping him asleep. He's fighting, and she wishes she knew how to help him wake up.

"Are you okay?" Mischa asks from behind her, Tasha having woken with her best friend by her side, and one of the reasons she is able to stay strong.

"Struggling for calm," Tasha responds, forcing a deep breath as Mischa sits next to her at the table. "They set a trap specifically for him. Just for him. They knew we were coming, and they ran, leaving behind some heavy hitters to take him out."

"There's only a handful of groups that could do that," Mischa says after a moment, filling the silence, her own thoughts along the same trail.

"Roland and his dogs, a few other groups," Tasha says with a hard frown in the mid-morning light. "When Richard wakes up, we're likely looking at a war."

"Against who?" Mischa asks, her brow furrowing.

"I don't know," Tasha says with a sigh, frowning deeply then turning to her long-time friend and former lover. "But it doesn't matter. Richard tries to be many things, and one thing he is, better than anything else, is a soldier. When he returns, we will find them and end them."

Mischa's lip twitches in a smile, shifting closer to Tasha so their knees touch, and she rests her hand on the other woman's leg.

"The look he gets, when he focuses on his target," Mischa says with a smile, sharing between women. "Focused, undeterred, incapable of being distracted or pulled away from his target. Like the night he crippled the army that attacked us when he returned from his Odyssey. He always gets his target, Tash, always. He never misses, and he always pulls through, just as he will this time. He'll be back soon, and when he wakes, we'll be ready."

Tasha smiles tightly, then leans forward and kisses her gently, the stresses of the day too much and needing the personal touch.

Autumn rides the horse easily down the dirt road just outside of Atlanta. With Richard paying for the trip, and keeping a relatively low profile, the small group had still managed to ride during the day, stay at small Inns at night, and a little over a week later she and Bridgette ride up to the final turn before the Keep. They turn onto the nearly overgrown road, two were-leopards and two were-wolves escorting them on the trip. She had talked with the cats, and Bridgette to the wolves, and the two groups had not spoken except when absolutely necessary. The guards have no issues with each other, but the two women glare daggers at each other through the journey, refusing to talk to each other.

Autumn is glad that they are nearly at their destination and she can focus on the next step, learning how to make the panacea. She has some theories on it, but knows that guessing without evidence is futile, and she's been chomping at the bit to actually get into theories and processes. The idea of being one of the first to learn the process is exciting beyond measure, and though she and Bridgette do not get along, both agree at the importance of their task.

"Halt," a voice calls from the trees as they near the last of the forested area before the cleared land immediately around the Keep.

They procession stops, knowing that they are in another's territory and invited guests. The process should be simple, but instead a pair of guards exit the trees in warrior form, a were-hyena and a were-wolf. They gesture for the group to stay, and they wait for a long set of minutes, when finally two forms trot into view from the Keep's front gate. The massive were-lion in warrior form stands over eight feet tall, with faint gray stripes on his back, a shorter were-jaguar beside him. Curran stops twenty yards away, his face fixed into a monstrous snarl while in the warrior form, his thick mane flowing wild on his head.

"Why are you here?" he demands immediately, his eyes flashing gold at the six visitors on horseback, the horses nearly panicking at the nearness of so many predators.

"You invited us," Autumn says with a wrinkled brow. "You sent a scroll, sealed and delivered to us a week ago. Two of us to learn about the panacea."

Curran goes absolutely still, barely moving, then glances at Jim beside him who turns and sprints back to the Keep.

"Welcome to Atlanta," Curran says with a sweep of his hand to the Keep. "I welcome the Khan's sister and the Wolf female Alpha to my home. When you are settled, we will talk about the invitation."

Autumn and Bridgette exchange a heavy look, both reading between the lines of the brief conversation, and neither drawing good conclusions.

Thirty minutes later Bridgette and Autumn are in a conference room in the Keep, Curran and Kate across from them at the table.

"I read it, it was your handwriting, your signature," Autumn says with a tight expression. "The wax seal was the one you agreed to with Richard, and had your scent on it."

"I didn't send it," Curran says with a deep frown, anger radiating off of him, but not directed at anyone in the room.

"Is it a false report?" Bridgette asks, her own concern at the fore, thinking of her own lost children and those of the Horde.

"No, that's the really strange thing," Kate says with a glance at Curran and an angry frown of her own. "We literally just got back from the trip the day you received the message. I'm learning the process still, we only have one guy who can make it, really well, and the rest of us are learning."

"Is d'Ambry dead?" Autumn asks, knowing Richard will want to know.

"How do you know that name?" Kate asks with narrowed eyes, both her and Curran fixing her with hard stares that remind the Celtic Witch of a cat staring at a mouse.

Autumn swallows on a dry mouth, being reminded of when she has seen Richard shift into soldier mode, his focus intense and ready to pounce. His gaze fixed on his target and he is just waiting to attack and destroy his enemy.

"It was in the message," she says with more confidence than she feels, even though she had read the scroll. "It said that he had been crippled and killed, that you got the recipe for panacea, and that we could send two people to learn how to make it."

Kate's expression becomes harder and again Autumn is reminded of the moments before Richard releases violence on his target. Kate looks away from them though, her gaze in the distance as she considers the focus of her anger.

"We did fight him, and I did shatter his back," Curran says with a frown, glancing at Kate.

"But he teleported out before he died," Kate says in a hard, stony tone. "We don't know more than that."

Bridgette licks her lips anxiously, leaning forward intently, "The recipe, the process… will you share it?"

Kate frowns and shifts anxiously in her seat, looking deliberately at Curran, who frowns as well.

"We are in deliberations with the Council on that precise point," Curran says with a sigh, relaxing slightly. "My proposal is exactly what you heard, two from major Packs we are allied with, and agreements to spread to firm allies only."

"The Horde are firm allies," Kate says with a nod to the two women. "The decision will be for that, or maybe a touch more restrictive. It's almost guaranteed to be shared with Ice Fury and the Horde."

"Your arrival will cause other problems, though, and draw things out," Curran says with a frown.

"What do you mean?" Autumn asks, not big on the politics of the Packs.

"They didn't send the message, but someone did, someone who knew what happened, and knew enough about the arrangements between the Pack and the Horde to send a forgery, a good forgery with scent and handwriting," Bridgette says with a hard frown, her face a stone mask.

"There may be a spy in our midst, here or there," Curran says with a glance at Kate, who maintains her own hard frown. "But…"

"We just locked down a contract to clear out the worst part of Houston with cooperation with all the law enforcement, including the Army and the Order," Bridgette says thoughtfully. "The timing was perfect to ensure that myself and Autumn, the two strongest magic users at the Horde's disposal, were well away."

"I need to call my brother," Autumn says quickly, her own mind catching up and going further. "This was a trap."

Tasha wakes up to the sound of a phone ringing, but pauses in a brief tangle of arms and sheets, her mind freezing as she remembers last night. She can hear Maddie walk down the stairs from upstairs to answer it and her mind partially panics and she rolls awkwardly out of bed. She shuffles to her closet and pulls out a long robe and looks at where Mischa is sitting up in bed, realizing where she is.

"Just a minute," Maddie says, and Tasha opens and closes the door before the teen can see inside, though she can probably smell Mischa in the house.

"Aunt Autumn, she says it's important," Maddie says with a frown at Tasha as she thinks hard, a scent reaching her nose, then going back upstairs to her room.

"Is Richard okay?" Autumn asks immediately, but doesn't wait for an answer. "Curran didn't send the scroll, the info was mostly right, but the bad guy isn't dead. We think it was a trap to pull me and Bridgette away from Houston."

Tasha sighs with a tight expression, "It was, we lost thirty of the Horde the night of the contract, and the Rangers and Order lost people too, a lot. Richard is in a loup coma."

There is silence on the other end of the line for a long moment, then Autumn speaks softly, "They haven't decided to let us learn how to make it, they are still debating. And the fact that it was a forged message is adding to the drama."

Tasha nods, frowning in thought, having already decided what should be done, "Tell Bridgette I want her home now, at her best discretion. Keep the leopards with you, and stay, learn how to make it."

"If it's loupism, he'll need panacea," Autumn says in a frustrated tone.

"Maybe, maybe not," Tasha says with an unseen shake of her head. "He is a First, and it was forced on him with magic, I think his mind is still intact, fighting it."

"I'll talk to Kate, she has some odd references and sources I don't," Autumn says after a moment. "If we can dig something up quick that might help, I'll send it with Bridgette, she may be able to cast something that will help."

"Be careful, they could be there, too," Tasha says through the phone to her sister-in-law.

"I have an angry were-lion First that is looking at every shadow hoping for something to attack," Autumn says with humor. "I pity the fool that thinks it's a good idea to fight in Atlanta right now. I thought Richard was bad."

Tasha laughs, and says her goodbyes, her mind racing to the days ahead. She turns when she hears the door to her bedroom open, and Mischa steps out dressed. She looks down and away, and Tasha sighs at the awkward conversation that lies before her.

"I'll meet you on the barn," Tasha says softly, then goes to her room to change quickly.

She rises onto the platform, Mischa sitting with a tea set on a tray and having made tea already. She pours the hot liquid as Tasha sits on the platform across from her, ordering her thoughts.

"We shouldn't have done that," Tasha says quietly, a bare murmur to keep the conversation private.

"I agree," Mischa says tensely, looking down at her teacup intently. "But I do not regret it."

Tasha sighs, setting down her tea and placing her face in her hands, "Mischa, I love Richard. He is my mate. Do not make this a decision… you will not like the answer."

Mischa swallows hard, frowning as she keeps her eyes on her own tea, "You already made it, when you married him, and I understand, I would choose the same, were I you. But I can't help the way I feel, for either of you."

Tasha sighs, rubbing her forehead, "You are my best friend, Mish, you know that. Let's survive until Richard wakes up, then figure it out. Okay?"

"How long until they get back with panacea?" she asks, sipping her tea, thinking of how it will help the Khan and others.

"They didn't send the scroll, someone else did," Tasha says with a thoughtful frown. "But the message was true, they crippled the Preceptor of the Iron Dogs, and stole the recipe for panacea. They have not decided to share it yet, though."

"I wondered why Bridgette was being recalled," Mischa says with a nod, also thinking hard. "It was definitely a trap, and likely set by Roland. He is responsible for the fall of California and Missouri, and the near successful attack on Atlanta."

"We know all of that thanks to Richard," Tasha says with her own frown of thought. "The Iron Dogs has no headquarters we know of, but Richard has been clear to us and the Council that the People are his as well."

"So we prepare for an attack by the People, and also prep to attack them in turn," Mischa says with a centering breath.

Tasha sighs and looks at her best friend and confidant, her rock to lean on when Richard isn't here, smiling gently at her.

"I need you, Mish, I just think we shouldn't fool around again," Tasha says with a sad smile.

"I understand," Mischa says with a smile and nod of her own, glad she can keep her best friend, but pensive for Richard's return.

Tasha strides quickly into the arena, the Council of Alphas there already, a runner having been sent to her that they had forced their way in. Thor stands between them and the cage that holds Richard, Mjolnir held firmly in his hand as he glares at the shapeshifters trying to visit the Khan. Tasha walks up and next to Thor, but not allowing the others closer. The Viking Thunder god is in fresh blue jeans, white shirt and blue leather vest, an axe on his hip as well.

"What is this?" she asks, looking at the Alphas.

"We came to see how badly he is hurt, to see when he will wake up," Thomas says with a deep frown at her. "We were told he was injured, not that he had gone Loup."

"He is not gone yet," she says with a firm shake of her head, her dirty blond hair in a half dozen thin braids on the sides, a thicker rope down the back from the middle of her head. "Magic is causing the shift, but he is still in there fighting."

"We can smell the difference, Tasha," Daniel Torres, the Rat Alpha says uneasily from the side, the most junior Alpha.

"He isn't drugged, but he still sleeps," she says gesturing at the body of the Khan, an IV in his arm. "Magic is doing this to him, and he will fight his way free of it."

"Curran, of Atlanta, had this happen to him, when a god came through his territory," Jay says with a doubtful expression after a long pause. "He was unconscious for weeks before he woke up. Weeks, Tasha, not days. We cannot be without a leader for weeks."

Her eyes flash gold at the last words, "What am I? Am I nothing without him? Have I not led us well in his absence before, for weeks at a time, as you just said it may be?"

"This is different," Jay continues, looking to the other Alphas, all looking torn. "We are on the brink of war, and last time he was gone for so long in such a dire situation, Pelos was still Pack Lord and you were only the Cat Alpha."

He looks at he assembled pairs of Alphas, and continues, "I place a motion to the Council, a vote of no confidence against the Nimir-ra, until the Khan wakes again."

Tasha snarls at him, but he ignores her, looking at the other Alphas. Thomas frowns, shaking his head sadly, and speaks first.

"Clan Wolf votes aye," Thomas says, not looking at Tasha.

"Clan Jackal, aye," Jay says with a nod, looking to Noel.

"Nay," the big were-bear says with a glare at the Jackal alpha.

"The Cats gave us everything we have," Torres says quietly, a glance at his wife beside him. "I can't betray that, nay."

Jay looks at Jameson, the lone Alpha left, her boyfriend Edmund beside her and submissive to her. She frowns hard, looking from Jay, her former Clan Alpha and mentor for years, and Tasha, who has more recently enabled her in her new clan.

"Don't look to past loyalty," Tasha says in a hard tone. "Don't look to the future, to when he wakes up. No one doubts he will wake. Look at me, and tell me you think _I_ will fail."

Jameson's expression firms, sensing the challenge in the other woman, both from Matriarchal groups, and she nods, "Nay. The Nimir-ra will not fail."

Jay simply bows politely to Tasha and walks out of the arena, those who voted with him following, and Tasha turns to Thor when they are gone.

"Thank you," she says, laying a thankful hand on his shoulder.

"They are so quick to abandon ship, when a storm threatens," he says with a shake of his head. "The captain is not dead, the first mate is wise, and the ship is not sunk. Fools."

Tasha smirks, "First mate?"

He shrugs, "You come up with a better analogy."

She pats him on the back, then turns to her comatose husband in the loup cage.

Deep under the Casino, home of the leader of the People, Houston Chapter, sits the lead necromancer with the silk clothed Tiamat standing at the large bay window overlooking the stables of undead. The bald headed leader of the People looks coldly at the other figure's back, his mind calculating as always. They had forced the other entities in the city to cooperate with the plan, but though they had hurt the Horde and their Khan, the underbelly of the city had still fallen.

"What is the endgame?" the bald man asks, his eyes narrowed as he looks at Tiamat, a pair of vampires sitting to the side, still as statues and waiting, held firmly in the bald man's control.

"It will be clear when the time comes," Tiamat responds without hesitation, his voice scratchy and hinting at nails on a chalkboard.

The bald man continues to study the man's back, "The Horde is holding on, but the law enforcement for the area is stalled for the time being. Their Khan is gone loup, and we have more than half of the creatures you brought with you. You could attack the Bastion now and destroy them utterly, but you do not. Why?"

"I answer only to the master," Tiamat responds, his mask peering at the hundreds of vampires below him. "And the master knows full well what he has tasked me to do, a task that only I can fulfill."

The bald necromancer walks into the wing of the building that has been put aside for Tiamat's people. They are fewer than before, and he can feel the power and ability within those that remain. He also senses the caged feeling from one in particular, and he looks to take advantage of that tonight. He pauses as he enters the room he knows the man/creature inhabits, glancing at the shadows, his own pair of vampires outside the windows, waiting to answer his call.

"Begone," a deep, bass voice calls from where the bed had been, but now only a pile of kindling and shredded cloth lies where used to be the bed, now a nest.

"You wish to destroy our master's enemy?" the man says coolly, stepping closer slowly, his expensive shoes clicking loudly in the high ceilinged room. "You wish to prove that you are deserving to be his instrument?" the man asks.

He had sensed it the moment he had looked into this one's eyes, that he would be the weak link, the one to turn. Years of infighting and cut-throat competition to get to where he is has given him the experience to know, and the tools to manipulate.

"I am worthy," the monster says from the nest, sickly bright yellow eyes glaring at the man from the dimness.

"I know you are," the man says, then gestures to the window and the city beyond. "My creatures, those the master has given me, they await you, to go and cleanse this place of the vermin the master wishes removed."

"But-" the creature begins in its deep voice, and the bald man tsks at him, turning away.

"I will find another, then, to lead my People," he says and starts to walk away.

"Stop," the creature growls, and the man slows, then stops, turning to look at the creature as it rises above the nest, ten long legs keeping it's thorax and torso off the ground. "I will rid us of the vermin."

"I had hoped so," the bald man says with a slow smile on his face.

Tasha sits in the office at Hoffman Resources, Alex sitting across from her reading off the abstracts and his opinion on the company's immediate future. She shakes her head as he flips the page and she waves at him.

"Alex, just make the decision, I don't know it well enough to make the call," she says with a sigh. "I need to keep focusing on the call out and organization."

Alex nods, realizing immediately her attention is already elsewhere, and leaves to go to his own office as she pulls out another report from the security section. She is reading it with a deep frown when she hears quick steps in the hall and a messenger from the Merc Guild runs in.

"There's been an attack on the guildhouse, Remy's dead," the young were-lynx says, a young Merc from the Horde.

"How?" Tasha asks with a deep frown.

"They wouldn't tell me, Chief Ranger Roberts asked if the Khan would come help," he says with a strained expression, knowing they are not telling everyone what happened to Richard.

"I'll go," she says, rising and taking a bow and quiver from the wall locker in the office before setting out to the Merc Guild.

She heads that way on foot, trotting with four bodyguards, two of her Pride, and two from Clan Heavy, a were-bear and were-boar. With the blatant vote pushed by Jay, Noel is nervous and has hired these two and another set to beef up her own guards. She can't help but think over the scenario that played out the other night, her own people betraying her.

"Ladies," Thor says politely as the two girls walk into the arena, both with their books in hand.

Jocelyn goes to her usual lotus position just out of arm's reach of the cage and opens Eragon on her lap, then begins to read. Thor rises from his chair to where Maddie stands further away, having gestured to him to come closer. He stops and kneels in front of the teenager, her five feet of lanky height far less than his own and not wanting to loom over the teen.

"What is it?" he asks quietly, knowing her ears can hear him, and his are just as sensitive.

"Will he get better?" she asks with a tight expression, her jaw clenching in nervousness. "Jocelyn and I, we already lost one mom _and_ dad, I don't want us to lose another."

Thor forces a tight smile, though there is no mirth in it, and thinks for a moment before replying, knowing he is not the most clever. After a long moment of thought, he tilts his head at her and asks a surprising question.

"Do you remember the night he and I fought, when we wrestled, and he beat me?" Thor asks, gesturing back at Richard's prone body forty yards away. "The night he and I became friends?"

Maddie nods, "You fought with no weapons, and he choked you."

"Aye," Thor says with a crooked smile, recalling the loss as well. "I have lived a thousand years, and in all my days and all the heroes, villains, monsters, gods and demons I have ever faced in all the nine realms and across centuries, he is one of only three to defeat me in fair combat."

Maddie looks at him seriously, studying him intensely, searching for any lie or deception in him, but finds none.

"Only three, in over a thousand years?" she asks, and he can see the hope in her eyes.

"Richard TigerEye, Baldur, the greatest champion of Asgard, and Tyr, the god of war and undefeatable in single combat, the god who taught my father and I to fight," he says with a firm nod. "And it was before he lost the hand to Loki's son. I think I could take him now."

Maddie laughs at his off-handed comment and smirk with the last statement, then he lowers his brow as he says seriously to her as an adult.

"You know what a First is?" he asks, and she nods. "He has the potential for godhood, Madalyn," Thor says with a serious expression and boring his gaze into hers. "The power that grips him is that of an ancient power, _that_ I can feel, and if he were any lesser man, I would tell you to put him to rest and mourn. But I tell you instead that he will continue to build a Death Guard for a long time to come. He will defeat this curse that grips him, and he will wake."

"You promise?" she asks, not realizing how childlike she sounds in the moment.

"I swear it, by the All Father himself," he says with his own firm nod. "Richard Michaels, he is far from done with this realm, and he will make his enemies quake in fear."

Thor watches the teenager go sit beside her sister as she reads, and sighs internally as he prays to his own father. _Richard, please don't make me a liar._

Tasha walks into the front, main lobby of the Merc Guild, an old motel with three large floors on it, built sturdy and sectioned into storerooms, conference and meeting rooms, offices and rooms to rent for the night still. Richard had personally invested in the Guild, to build it up further and make it even more respectable and tightly knit. Tasha strides in confidently and slows to a stop as her nose parses the scents in the area, the place where Remy was killed.

She recognizes most of the people's scents, having met nearly all the Mercs and the same for the law enforcement in the area. She approaches the scene slowly, her nose fluttering as it drinks in the few unfamiliar scents and parses them out. She stops six feet from the sprawled body of Remy in the center of the lobby. Remy was a tall, spare man in life, a water mage that was good with a spear and favored a trident as well as handguns. He founded this Chapter of the Mercenary Guild twelve years ago, and had built a good company, based on the model of where he had started out as a Merc in Atlanta.

When Richard became head of Hoffman Resources, he had approached the Guild on buying stock in the business. That had opened the door, and now Hoffman's, or more specifically the Horde and Richard, owns a little over forty percent of the business. Richard had started by buying out smaller stock holders while simultaneously pushing Remy to make renovations to the organization of the business. Atlanta's Chapter head had been killed not long ago, and the Guild barely survived until they could figure out how to operate without their founder. Richard had pushed reforms, so that even with a power vacuum, the Guild will operate and the procedures are clear.

Remy's lean body, normally a bit over six feet tall with sharp features, is lying on an indentation in the wooden floor, blood pooling around him. A twelve inch long, tri bladed iron dagger is shoved into his shoulder, pinning him to the ground, and appearing be the cause of death. Remy had not gone down without a fight, however, as she looks around the room where water pipes have burst and water pools in some areas. She turns from the body, the Texas Rangers and Police at the scene having waved her through, and she walks to Chief Ranger Roberts.

"Where's Rick?" he asks, a concerned look in his eyes.

"On the mend," she says with a frown and half shrug, playing off his absence. "He was very badly wounded, and we had to re-break a few bones to let them heal right. His opponent used silver, so the healing is going slower."

Roberts nods, then gestures at the body, "You knew Remy, so I won't go over the victim."

"Who was the perp?" she asks with a frown. "I don't recognize the scent."

"We don't know either, but we just finished the M-scan, and getting the printouts, I'll have you sent a copy," Roberts says with a gesture to the side where a portable m-scanner is printing out its reading.

Tasha only frowns hard in thought, then glances at Roberts who is motioning her to the side of the room and privacy. When they are alone he speaks low, to keep the conversation between them.

"This isn't a coincidence, so soon after the failed raid," Roberts says with a shake of his head, taking his hat off to run his fingers through his hair. "Is this _canine_?"

The question is legitimate, there have been attacks in the city before that were caused by the Iron Dogs, and Roberts is a smart, experienced man.

"I don't think so," she says with a shake of her head, her own expression pensive. "I think this is related to them and their master, though."

Roberts digests that for a long moment, thinking, but his gaze shifts to the wall, and Tasha follows his gaze to where she sees the movement as well. The water is moving, controlled through magic and gathering to the side of the lobby, near the stairs.

"Gather a response team!" Tasha shouts, pulling her sabre from her hip as she walks forward towards where the water is gathering, nervous, but wanting to protect her people.

Her guards are at her sides, and with their own weapons drawn, a figure in black emerges from the dark hallway ten yards away. The gathered police and Rangers have pulled their own weapons, bows, crossbows and bladed weapons, a dozen or so total law enforcement. The Mercs have run off, looking to have retreated without the promise of pay for the fight. The figure in the doorway is dressed in black and red silk, and with a tight fitting iron helmet, Tiamat.

"You arrived faster than I anticipated," Tiamat says in a scratchy and echoing voice, the fixed features of the mask turning left and right slowly. "But no matter, I laid in a contingency for that. She is eager to finally meet you."

Before Tasha can respond, the wooden floor around her feet explodes in a spray of water and she falls through the floor with her guards, the hole just big enough for them but no one else. She can sense violent fighting emerge as she falls, but she hits water after only a couple yards off falling, the basement is flooded. She kicks up to the surface and takes a breath as she looks around at the dim basement, her eyes drinking in the little light to give her some vision. She can see something darting in the water, and as she does one of her guards is dragged under the water with a brief shout and bubbles. Red floods the water, and then the were-bear surfaces with a strained face.

"My leg, it bit my leg off," he pants, bobbing and starting to sink below the water.

Tasha is turning in the water, her eyes searching frantically, then dives under the water with a breath of air. She drops under, sinking easier than swimming as she has all her clothes on, boots and her small herb bag over her shoulder. She can see the figure clearer now, though still slightly indistinct, a creature that looks remarkably like a human female, but with wide toes that have fins between them, hands with long black talons. The face catches her real attention, though, as the creature has short sharp teeth that look like that from a great white shark on her jaws. The head is misshaped, being twice the size of a human's but with the jaw taking up two thirds of it.

As Tasha watches in a defensive position, her blade between her and the creature, it lunges out and catches one of the were-lion's legs by the knee in its teeth. She shoves her claws in at the thigh and calf, pulling the leg from the body while ripping back and forth with its teeth, shearing through muscle and bone. Tasha moves and bunches up as the shark woman focuses on her and swims gracefully towards her.

Tasha knows she is no equal to Richard's fighting prowess, but she has worked hard to be better than she had been, and the fact that she fought righteously for her position as Nimir-ra proves her ability. The monster is five yards away, then kicks explosively and closes the distance to Tasha in a flash. Tasha is already in motion, twisting and driving her sword up in a long cut which the creature ducks, its mouth open wide to bite Tasha's hip. Tasha had only used one hand on the sword, though, her other on the ice axe from Richard, her hand holding the haft near the head. She punches the blade up into the monster's neck, twisting as she pushes magic into the blade, and the shark woman thrashes as the freezing property of the weapon hits her full force.

Tasha pushes away in the water, her leg bleeding from where a talon had cut her, and leaving the axe in the monster. The creature stiffens, and the axe continues to freeze it, slowly turning the body into an iced block.

Tasha kicks to the surface and inhales explosively, the time in the water had her to her limit. She continues to gasp as she pulls her senses to her and looks at the remaining guards, the two hale ones holding the others at the surface.

"It's dead," she says simply, starting to swim to the stairs. "Take care of them, I'm going after the asshole who dropped us here."

Tasha reaches the stairs ahead of the others and takes a moment to check her bag for her ingredients for spells, cursing that most are ruined by the water. Some are still good, and she tosses the useless herbs and makes what she has ready. She pulls her sword out again and ascends the stairs that the masked man had used not long ago. She enters the lobby in only a few moments and pauses as she drinks in the scene.

The man is standing on the far side of the lobby, and all the law enforcement officers are lying in puddles of blood and torn limbs, their bodies broken and most dead with the rest dying. Blood is everywhere, as though the figure had purposely spread it around as much as possible. The man is currently standing among five bodies, torn apart violently and with blood liberally spread everywhere. She recognizes them as Mercs, the Guild's reaction team, whom she'd called for immediately.

"You are bit more than advertised, it would seem," the man says as he drops the body he had been holding easily over his head, the dead husk falling with a wet thump.

The man walks effortlessly across the body strewn floor, blood on every surface and on his own silk robes, as though he had stood in a blood shower. His mask is more demonic with the blood glistening on it, dripping off it heavily.

Tasha snarls at him, her sword held two handed as she glares at him, her eyes flashing gold. Suddenly, the magic drops and tech rules the world again.

"Ahh, there it is," the man says in sing song fashion, pausing ten yards from her in the large lobby.

Tasha shifts her stance and pulls the compact 1911 pistol from her bag and points it at the man, who tilts his head in apparent surprise.

"A gun? Really?" he asks, a rhetorical tone with an edge of humor to it. "Less elegant than I had been told of the Horde."

"The Khan believes in using all available tools to accomplish the mission," she snarls at him, slowly easing her sword away so she can hold the gun two handed.

"A fitting saying, as I have done the same," the man says, having shifted from a fighting stance to both his feet together and standing upright, his hands tight to his sides and held behind his back.

"What do you mean?" Tasha asks into the silence, assuming this is the man that put the spell on Richard, and therefore someone to fear.

"Hmm," he murmurs with mocking amusement. "I have many tools, but it's better to get someone else off the bench and play, don't you think? Make them earn their pay."

Tasha waits for more, but none comes, and she grits her teeth in anger, "Tell me."

He chuckles darkly, "I plan to… and that's the _point_." He pauses with an audible sigh, then tilts his head at her, "I told him to wait, but he wouldn't listen. He grew impatient."

"Who is he? What will he do?" Tasha yells at the figure, shoving the gun at him two handed, the mocking tone grating on her.

"Not will, _is_ ," Tiamat corrects in a slow drawl tinged in an evil tone. "What _is_ he doing?"

Tasha glares at the man, realizing this is a game he's playing, and she's losing, he's in control of the conversation. She decides to change that, and lowers the gun slightly, shooting at the man's leg. The man twists and the leg moves from the path of the bullet, a miss. He moves to the side on light toes, his scratchy voice laughing as he moves.

"Too slow, lioness," he says mockingly, and she shoots at his leg again, and again a miss.

"Guns are apparently not your thing," he says with a high pitched giggle.

Tasha growls and keeps firing, but missing as the man flips and dodges the bullets, laughing the whole while. When the gun is empty, she pulls her sword, but the man backs away, chuckling in a mad scientist imitation, but darker.

"If you chase me, you won't be able to help them," he says as she starts to pick up speed to follow and close with him.

She stops and glares at him, "Who?"

"Your family, of course," he says in flat tone, no humor in it now, the eyes of the helmet seeming to condemn her. "Your comatose husband and those little kits you took in."

"They are attacking the Bastion?" Tasha asks, her mind racing that way.

"Have been for a few minutes now," he says with a nod of his helmet. "They didn't want wards to impede them, you understand. And the plan isn't a bad one, it'll work, I think."

Tasha bares her teeth at him, her eyes flashing, and he raises a finger and shakes it back and forth.

"Your time will come, Nimir-ra," the man says in a scratchy growl. "It will come when I have crippled your mate and shown everyone just what he is, deep down. A Coward… a failure. And when everyone sees him for what he is, what he failed to be, I will kill you slowly in front of him. Then, I _may_ let him live… as punishment."

"You are going to die," Tasha promises him in her own dark tone.

"Perhaps, but you will not be the one to do it," the man says with an easy shrug then turns away from her and walks to the stairs leading up. "Go, lioness, if you want to help your family."

Thor leans back in the folding chair as he watches Jocelyn and Maddie idly, his mind elsewhere. The magic crashes, and he shifts in his chair, moving the shield at his side away and replacing it with an automatic rifle. He hears a horn start to call out, but it stops mid cry, and he hears shouting, then gunfire from the front gate. He rises, pulling the rifle to his side as he clips Mjolnir to his belt, turning towards the sound.

"Thor?" Maddie asks, rising from her seat with Jocelyn behind her.

"Stay behind me," he says. "The guards will handle whatever it is. I'm staying to protect Richard, just in case, and you'll be safe here with me."

Mischa runs out the front door of the cabin, having been fixing dinner for the girls as Tasha is out of the Bastion right now. She heard the gunfire and moved immediately, but now she changes direction as she watches figures eel over the ramparts, vampires. The humans infected with the Imortuus pathogen are devoid of any fat and twisted with sharp teeth and an insatiable taste for blood, their bodies piloted like remote controlled cars by navigators of the People. The People are attacking them, and she runs to the weapons shed by the barn, pulling out a pair of guns and then sprinting to the arena. In short time she's there with a pistol on her side, AR15 in her hands as she runs in.

"What has happened?" Thor asks, scanning the edges of the arena.

"The People are attacking, vampires," she says as she reaches the two girls, reaching out a hand for Jocelyn to take. Before she can tell them to follow her into the tunnels and safety, an inhuman shriek pierces the air, and she freezes at the sound.

"That was no vampire," Thor says, scanning the upper level of the arena.

A shadow rises up over the edge then lands on the benches with an audible crash, wood beams splintering and twisting under the strain. The monster is a bastard hybrid of a spider and a man, the torso of a monstrous sized man five feet from the hips to the top of the thin horns on its head. The thorax is seven feet long from where it emerges from the back of the upper part's hips, with five pairs of long, agile legs stretching out, the legs like a spider's and ten feet long, but bent. The legs keep the thorax and torso five feet off the ground as it quickly scuttles down the bench seats, shrieking again at them.

Thor and Mischa both raise their rifles and fire, but the bullets bounce off the thick hide with only a ripple and twitch where they struck, and the monster picks up speed towards them. Mischa tosses the gun aside and rips off her belt, then shoves down her jeans just before her skin splits and fur explodes off her body, revealing a were-lion in warrior form over six feet tall. Thor has tossed his gun aside as well and pulls Mjolnir off his belt, striding to the monster.

"I've fought bigger," Thor yells at the man-spider that is now scuttling fast across the arena floor towards him.

Thor drops Mjolnir to the end of its thong, spinning it to get up a good momentum, then swings up at the body of the beast. The beast rises up on its six back legs and now with four long legs in front of it to attack with, Mjolnir missing a strike by inches. Thor shifts to place another attack but grips the handle and blocks a jabbing leg with the hammer's head. He blocks three such attacks, then a leg sweeps under him while he blocks another, and he lands hard on his back. He rolls to the side as two legs jam into the ground where he had just been, and he regains his feet as the creature is staying close, still scuttling quickly on six legs.

He cocks back to swing at the monster, but a leg sweeps at him and strikes him in the hips, the impact like getting hit by a truck. Thor spins into the stands and crashes into benches, breaking four and falling through the shattered floor, out of sight. The monster turns to look at the cage again, but Mischa is already in mid-leap, and lands on the torso with claws and teeth. She clamps her jaws on the shoulder, clenching again and again in an attempt to pierce the thick hide. The monster has a human proportioned jaw and head, but has sharpened teeth as well as the six short narrow horns on its head. It lowers its head and shoves the horns into Mischa's muzzle and face, tearing it up while he wraps his own thick arms around her to hold her to his chest.

Mischa is kicking with her hind claws against his abdomen and thorax, starting to draw shallow gashes, and her taloned hands starting to gash his back. But the front two legs reach out and turn inward, then stab in repeatedly and sharply. Mischa roars in agony into the night as she is speared repeatedly in the back, her blood flying into the night in arcs. After a flurry of attacks, the monster drops Mischa's nearly limp form and steps over her bleeding body toward the cage once more.

The monster pauses ten yards from the cage, towering over the last obstacles and tilting its head to look down at them. Two animals, one a wolf, perhaps a hundred pounds, and a mountain lion that must only weigh sixty pounds, stand between it and the cage. The two are snarling at him, the hair along their backs raised high at the threat he poses. The monster lashes out at the larger wolf, pinning the back thigh to the ground through the leg, and the small lion jerks back in surprise, then leaps at the leg and starts to gnaw on the chitin and hide. The monster pauses, surprised at the actions of these pathetic creatures, and raises another leg high to kill the lion.

A roar, louder than the one from the were-lion, sounds in the arena, a deep throated bellow that sends chills down even the man-spider's spine in reaction. It looks up with the leg frozen high, and standing in the loup cage is a were-tiger in warrior form, seven and a half feet tall, glaring at him with orange glowing eyes.

Richard is lulled comfortably by the soft voice he can hear, and it has grown stronger over time, how much time he can't say. He is pushing against the fog on his mind, and he can feel he's making progress, slowly rising from the depths. The voice helps, and suddenly the voice stops, then its tone changes, one of fear. An urgency grips him, and he shoves harder, though he has been pushing as hard as he can from the start, but he pushes harder somehow.

Another sound, a roar, familiar, seeps through, he can feel the veil separating him from the world thinning, he's closer now, he's almost there. Then cries and a roar of agony, of pain, and his core is pierced with worry, a word floating through him, _family_. He pushes harder, his efforts redoubling again, and finally he can see light, fuzzy and indistinct, but he can see. His eyes crack open and he turns his head thickly, still struggling against what is holding him, and his eyes settle on a small wolf and lion through bars of a cage.

A monstrous spear jabs down on the wolf's leg, and it snarls in pain as it is pinned to the dirt of the floor. The lion darts onto the leg to free the wolf, but Richard is no longer watching, the sound of his child's pain pulling him the last of the way free of his bonds, and he is now standing, roaring into the night in a fury he has never felt in his life. He lowers his massive jaws from the sky, his teeth larger now than before, and he walks to the bars of the cage while staring at a monstrous man-spider who had attacked his children. The cage door is to the side not facing the monster that glares at him intently, and he only glances at it before returning his angry glare at the monster.

He grips the silver bars despite the burning pain and shoves the door off its hinges and lock, his anger making him strong, stepping through the opening and staring up at the monster. It has stepped to the side, away from the children, to where it can approach Richard without the cage in the way. Richard hurls the silver alloy door at the monster, who tries to dodge, but the heavy door smashes into the two front legs on the left, breaking the joints. Richard is in the air already, and lands on that side of the monster's body, using the broken limbs as grips and swinging onto its back. He wraps his monstrous legs around the thorax for purchase and shoves heavy blows from his elbows into the back of the monster.

The creature shrieks into the night at the pain, Richard's blows breaking ribs and damaging organs. He shifts down and breaks the pelvis to the side, then he centers his strikes and shatters the spine below the shoulder blades. The creature shrieks again, weaker, as it falls to the ground, the dozen blows from the Khan killing it. Richard hops off and walks to the front of the monster, his eyes flashing again as he roughly grabs its neck in his hand and drags its gaze to his.

"No one hurts my family," he says in a growl through monstrous teeth. "No one," he says again with a curled lip. "So now, I will not finish you. Instead, we'll see how long it takes you to die."

Richard releases the monster, turning and walking away from the mortally wounded thing, which begins to whine piteously. He jogs after only a few steps, stopping at where Maddie and Jocelyn are at, kneeling beside them in his half form. He runs his hands over Maddie's side gently, pausing at the hole in her leg to look at it better. He pauses and looks up and around, seeing where Mischa lies in a bloody heap twenty yards away in the large area.

"I'm going to heal the worst of it," he says as soothingly as he can with his growl of a voice. "I have to go fix Mischa."

The wolf nods, its head lying on the ground and panting heavily, and Richard lays his hand on the wound, chanting and pushing magic into the damaged flesh. He stops the major bleeding and sets the bone, then lifts his hand, not wanting to exert himself yet. He turns towards Mischa and starts moving as he calls over his shoulder.

"Jocelyn, watch over your sister," he says, then kneeling next to where Mischa lies.

She has shifted to animal form, a large lion lying on its side, and Richard frowns as he studies the damage the monster had caused her. She has eight deep punctures on her back, with three other slight scores and lacerations. Blood is lying copiously beside her, and he lays his hands on the wound, chanting and closing his eyes as he prays for healing. He can sense and feel the damaged tissue and bone, the organs inside that have been pierced. He concentrates his magic on holding the bleeding at bay, so he has time to work, and the blood slows to a bare oozing trickle from the open wounds.

He can feel the LycV in her system, strong, working to heal the damage, and he focuses on the critical organs first, the lacerated liver and damaged kidneys. Once that is fixed, he moves on to the broken bones, four shattered ribs, three cracked and the upper arm broken on the right side. He mends them to be straight and aligned, then stops, as he nearly falls over from lightheadedness. He has caught himself with an arm braced on the ground, and he blinks his eyes to clear them again. He has never healed so much damage before, and he has overextended himself in rising from his coma and now the healing. He looks around and also realizes that he's doing it while the magic is down and the tech rules the world. Well… shit.

Richard rises to his feet and stretches, still in warrior form, then turning back towards where his two kids are at. He can see the worried look on their faces and the fear in their scent, and he nods to them.

"She will live, but won't be walking around for a while," he says firmly, and they relax slightly as he walks to Mischa's head, her eyes fixed on him as he kneels by her head.

"Thank you," he says, leaning down and touching her nose with his own, gently patting her head. "Thank you for protecting them. Rest now, we'll talk when you wake up."

She closes her eyes and he can sense her exhaustion as she shifts into human form when she passes out. Richard rolls her onto her stomach then rises and walks to where the stands are broken, smelling Thor. He hops into the hole and finds Thor dragging himself through the rubble to the opening. Richard pauses when he raises the hammer, but stops when he recognizes him.

"Is it dead?" Thor asks, panting and holding his hip with his left hand, still lying on the ruins of the stands.

"It's dead, how are you?" Richard asks, moving closer.

"It broke my hip, I think," Thor says with an angry growl. "If I were mortal, it would have tore me in half, and if the magic were up, it would only have thrown me, not broken it."

"Do you need help?" Richard asks, extending a hand, and Thor takes it and allows the taller were-tiger to help him stand.

"Take me to the children, with a rifle, I will protect them while you see to the Horde," Thor says with a grimace as he clips Mjolnir to his belt.

"What is happening?" Richard asks, hearing gunfire, and lifting the large Viking out of the hole.

"We have been attacked by vampires, led by that monstrosity," Thor says as he leans on Richard to get to the cage and the wounded.

Richard nods understanding and sets Thor in the folding chair, handing him the discarded rifle then running out of the arena to help his people.

Tasha runs into the front gates of the Bastion, panting as she looks at the front gate lying in a shattered mess to the side. She stops and tries to listen over the pounding in her ears, but though she hears some yells of pain, she can't hear gunfire or fighting. She jogs around the cabin, its porch damaged but the main building looking intact, and she comes into sight of the barn. There are a number of people sitting there, helping tend to injured and wounded, most needing fluids to continue healing at their increased rate granted by LycV.

"Tasha," she hears called in Richard's voice, and she turns to where he is walking towards her from the arena in human form, a pair of sweatpants on him.

She runs to him, and he catches her in his arms and holds her close, his nose in her hair as she clutches him tightly. She inhales his scent, and is relieved beyond measure that she cannot smell the loupism, that he is healthy again. She kisses the side of his neck and pulls back her head while still holding him, looking at his hazel eyes with her own blue.

"You scared the shit out of me," she says in a harsh whisper.

"It wasn't me," he says with his expression darkening. "It was a man, called Tiamat."

"Iron helmet? Crazy?" she asks, frowning as well.

"Yes," he growls. "He cast a blood spell on me, that's why it held."

Tasha licks her lips pensively before speaking again, still embracing him, "He's powerful, and older than the Norse. I think Roland sent him."

"For certain," Richard says with a nod, looking into her eyes and stroking her hair gently, his face softening. "There is no time to call allies outside Houston. We're hurt, and they know it."

"We destroyed the Triad and the Sicilians while you slept," she says with a nod to him, leaning her chin into his touch. "Most of the others ran. We confiscated a lot of stuff, should make decent coin from it."

Richard tilts his head at her and studies her face intently, "They were surprised, weren't they? They didn't expect an attack."

"No," she says with a shake of her head, puzzled at his far away expression as he thinks. "They had no idea."

"They know us, how we think, how I think, and have made plans accordingly," Richard says thoughtfully.

"He said something similar, when I saw him at the Merc Guild, where he killed Remy and then the law that showed up," she says with a tight frown. "I don't know if Roberts survived or not."

Richard frowns at the news, but pushes it away and meets the current challenge instead.

"So we be smart, but not characteristically smart," Richard says with a twist of his head. "I can handle that."

"So what do we do?" she asks, looking up at him, knowing him well enough to know he has a plan already forming in his head.

He leans forward and kisses her deeply and passionately, which she returns just as deeply, and they lose themselves in each other for a long minute. Richard rises up from the kiss and looks her solidly in the eyes with a savage joy in his expression and a smile creeping into his face.

"Fetch my armor, for the warrior form," he says with an odd expression of joy on his face. "We attack before dawn."

Richard ascends the steps of the barn and arrives at the platform there with a tilt to his head. Mischa is asleep in the cabin, and Tasha had organized his gear while he had grabbed a dozen others to suit up in warrior armor and join him in the attack. Nita had been bringing him meat heavy sandwiches the entire time, so he could get calories in his system for the fight to come. The armor is attached to the full sized wooden carving of his warrior form on the far side of the platform, and Tasha stands to one side of it, Maddie and Jocelyn on the other.

Tasha is worn looking in her leather jacket and vest over jeans, Maddie is still in wolf form, but Jocelyn is in her human form with a pink flower print shirt and jeans over bare feet. In front of the statue and armor is a platter, and Richard smiles as he looks at it, then sits down, gesturing to the others to join him. The three girls move forward and sit around the platter with him, Tasha across from him and Jocelyn and Maddie on either side. Before they can fully settle though, Richard reaches to either side and brings the young ones into a tight embrace.

"I heard you," he says, kissing the top of Jocelyn's head. "I heard you talking to me, while I fought the magic that held me. I could feel you both there, watching and waiting for me. It gave me strength."

He gives them another squeeze, then looks down at the two youths that have been through so much already in their short lives.

"When I was young, something happened to me, something horrible that I would never wish on another person," he says quietly and intensely as he looks at them, and they look up eagerly in return. "But it changed me, turned me into the young man that would one day become the man I am today, the Khan. You have both experienced something similar, and you understand that you can't go back."

"I couldn't let him hurt you or Maddie," Jocelyn says with a soft, small voice.

"There was a saying I remembered seeing when I was looking at a recruiting video for the Army. It stuck with me through the years as a definition of a soldier, of what a responsible adult does," he says with a tight smile, looking at both girls, though one is a large wolf tucked into his side. "It asks the question, 'do you run towards trouble, or do you run away?'. Neither of you ran away, you made your stand and you refused to back up, even when the odds were against you. I am proud of you both."

Maddie leans into him as Jocelyn hugs him tight in return, and he reluctantly pushes them to the side after he embraces them, then leans forward to where a pile of smoked and grilled sausages are sitting on the platter. He waves Tasha away from serving and instead he deals out the food to the others in heaping piles. When the food is passed around, he reaches a hand out and places one on Maddie's head, the other in Jocelyn's hand and Tasha does the same. He lowers his head and they all say a short prayer before eating.

The bald man rushes into his office at the Casino in central downtown Houston, nearly frantic. The attack on the Bastion had started as a success, they took out the sentries at the gate quickly, and then destroyed the main gate. The monster had gotten eager and made a dash for the arena, where his intel said the Khan was in a coma. But then the monster had died, and the Khan had emerged from the arena and engaged his vampires.

The only fortunate part of the entire debacle was that the navigators were able to extract successfully. Once they started losing, he had his people simply let go of the undead minds and retreated from where they had parked the armored personnel carriers a kilometer from the Bastion. The bestial minds of the vampires let loose probably caused more damage, and had allowed him and his people to get out without any more losses. Now he has to go into damage control mode, but he stops when he walks into his office and the sight he sees.

The office had a deep plush rug and a mahogany desk overlooking the stables where the vampires are housed, half of them gone from the attack. Not an item is out of place among the desk, chair, sofa and two armchairs arrayed in the area. Tiamat stands at the window, overlooking the stables, the silk robes stiff with heavy blood, and dark blood staining the carpet around him. The bald man immediately recognizes the scents of the blood, both shapeshifter and human. He is frozen for only a second, and Tiamat speaks into the silence.

"There is a saying in the military," the scratchy voice says without turning from the window. " 'Don't give an order you know will be disobeyed.'."

The bald man closes the door and slowly walks to his desk while watching Tiamat's back, "You do not give me orders."

"No, I do not," Tiamat responds from where he stands, feet together at the heel and hands clasped tightly behind him, his elbows close to his sides. "I give orders to my instruments and tools. And I never ordered him to _not_ listen to you, to _not_ attack the Bastion."

The bald man is at his desk and pauses as he reaches to a drawer, still looking at Tiamat's back, the meaning of the words sinking in.

"You knew I would coerce him, to attack," the man says.

"And now he sees…" Tiamat says in a mocking tone as he tilts his head, looking at the stables still.

The bald man opens the drawer and pulls out the pistol there, then points it at Tiamat ten yards away. The man never moves, still apparently staring at the stables. The bald man narrows his eyes and frowns hard, looking down the sights carefully with both hands holding the gun to steady it. He looks down the sights onto the center of Tiamat's back and squeezes the trigger. The hammer of the automatic pistol clicks forward, with no accompanying gunshot. Tiamat raises his left hand, the closer side to the bald man, displaying a pistol magazine in his hand.

"You are _less_ than advertised," Tiamat says as he turns from the window towards the man.

"Did Roland tell you to kill me?" the man asks, lowering the gun as he stands taller to accept his fate as a man.

"No," Tiamat says in an amused tone as he tosses the magazine aside. "You are beneath his notice, a bug in his existence. And I won't squash you."

The bald man tilts his head as he looks at the other, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, "Why not? What do you want?"

"Oh, I don't _want_ anything," Tiamat says, the blood on his robes and mask stiff and thick. "You've already danced admirably to the soft tune I've hummed to you. And I'm certain you will again."

The bald man scowls at Tiamat as he walks to the door to leave, "What does that mean?"

"You will find out shortly," Tiamat says without looking back. " _Very_ shortly."

The bald man scowls at the figure that leaves his office, his mind racing to figure out what the demon means.

Richard trots at the head of a wedge formation of his best fighters, twelve shapeshifters in warrior form, all with armor and weapons on their person as they run behind and beside their Khan, two of them leopards, four of them wolves, two bears, two jackals, one jaguar, and one hyena. They run through the late night, dawn only an hour away, Houston starting to stir around them as they run through the main thoroughfares of the city towards their objective. They all carry large, long spears, made of steel and reinforced to be able to withstand the massive strength of shapeshifters and not break. Richard has his gladius on his hip, knives and daggers on his body and back, and a long, ten foot spear with a foot long blade on the top.

He had his people call ahead and tell the Order and Rangers that they can either help or stay out of the way, and both had opted to stay out of it. Richard had been walking past the cabin to the gate when he'd gotten a call from the Mayor. He'd taken it, and was surprised when the man who practically despised him told him that he had SWAT teams around the perimeter to keep anything from hitting the city. He was nearly speechless when the same Mayor told him "good hunting" before hanging up.

So it is with no backup and an informal blessing of the local government that Richard trots into view of the Casino, home of the People here in Houston. Richard slows to a stop and surveys the ramparts outside the large Casino modeled after the Taj Mahal, vampires scuttling along the battlements and dome. He had not made any complicated plan for the attack, deciding instead to just wing it at the scene, the two team leaders he'd picked from the group with him both with military experience. He turns to the group with him and his eyes flash orange before he speaks.

"Mitchell, take your team to the east, attack when you hear the explosion," he says firmly, patting the grenades he has on his belt, the tech gripping the world. "Jameson, take your team and hold back while I do the breach and penetration, I want you to be loud and scary."

"We can do that, Khan," the were-hyena says with a slight cackle at the end, her monstrous jaws making her words hard to understand, but the red flash of her eyes unmistakable.

"You come and reinforce me when the gate is down," he continues as he looks at all those gathered. "They started this, we will finish it. Stay in pairs at the least, use your weapons, fight smart. The vampires can hurt you, but you are stronger, just as fast, and you have armor. Be patient, clear methodically and thoroughly. This place will be a tomb when we finish, and I expect only scratches and bruises from you at the end of the night. Understand?"

The group all nods, having heard the same instruction on fighting from the first day they had all started training with Richard. He approaches battle with the same care towards injuries as a human, but with the understanding of the capabilities of one that has the strength and speed of a shapeshifter. He's trained them all on using their spears properly, to shift to swords and axes when needed, and to be patient in the fight. He looks around and makes eye contact with all of them with a firm, confident expression on his monstrous face, nodding as he does.

" _We_ are the Golden Horde," he says, waving at them. "The strongest and fiercest of our people," he pauses and looks at the Casino then back at those with him, his voice hardening as he recites words from Shakespeare.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

Or close the wall up with our honored dead!

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility,

But when the blast of war _blows_ in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the _tiger_ :

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage…

" _RAGE,_ I say!" he roars, not caring they are only a few hundred yards away and about to attack. "They plot and scheme against us, they attack our home, maim and kill our family! _No more_ I say! No more! Teams go!"

He turns with the last, and Jameson's group roars, howls, screams and cackles into the night while Mitchell takes his own group silently to the east. Richard strides towards the front gate of the Casino, which is rapidly closing as the compound realizes that the Khan is at their door. Richard stops a hundred yards from the gate and leaps onto the nearest lightpost, pulling a large furl of cloth from his back and stringing it up to flutter in the faint breeze. He hops to the ground, the large banner flapping slightly in the wind, a solid black cloth ten feet by five feet flapping gently.

He'd chosen it a long time ago if this moment ever came, and he glares at the front gate for a moment before striding forward again. The banner is a reference to Genghis Khan, in his campaigns, when he would raise a tent with one of three colors before a city he was taking under siege. White meant he would negotiate, and accept tribute, a time of three days, Red was that if they negotiated, he would only kill all the adult men, no one else, only raised for a single day. The black tent came last, signaling that everyone in the city would die, there would be no mercy, no holding back, that the men would all die, and anyone else would be killed or sold into slavery.

Richard stops fifty yards from the front gate, pulls grenades from his belt as he sets down his spear, then he begins pulling pins and throwing them. His aim is pretty good, and he drops fragmentation grenades and thermite grenades into the firing slits at the front gate, the explosions and flashes from the destruction glaring in the pre-dawn gloom. He continues to lob and hurl the explosive devices until the gate is in ruins, some of the grenades impact detonated. He picks up his spear and jogs to the broken gate, Jameson's team coming from the buildings behind him as he approaches. They join him as he leaps over the shattered remains of the gate, and they begin to tear into the vampires that leap at them from the walls and ledges.

The bald man is in his office, his mind racing through a navigated trio of vampires in the corridors around his office. He had barely believed the reports, that the Khan was personally attacking the Casino, and that he was doing so with only a half dozen others. It sounded like suicide to him, but then the gate had gone to shattered tatters in less than a minute, and the shapeshifters had come through the opening and over the wall. If he hadn't been piloting a vampire and witnessed it, he would have said impossible, but he had seen, and now he fears.

A pair of shapeshifters enters the hall with his vampire, and he attacks, but the hyena drops back instead of attacking, and the were-bear with her grabs the neck of the vampire. The man releases his hold on the undead, knowing it is a lost asset, and to remain would be to become a vegetable himself. He shifts his attention to the other two he pilots, bringing one back to his own office, while the other waits just outside. A few minutes pass, and he has the one he recalled make him coffee while he focuses on the sounds and scents the other receives.

He can hear fighting, some gunfire, but mostly snarls and the sound of metal and claws on flesh as the shapeshifters close on his location and the stables, in which only about ten percent of their vampires remain, the rest killed in the last twenty four hours. He is taking the coffee mixed with expresso from the one vampire as the Khan and two others burst into view of the vampire on sentry, and he lets the undead loose. He can hear the brief fight outside his door, hoping it at least injured Michaels, but knowing better. A moment passes, then the door opens slowly, having been unlocked, and the Khan stands in his doorway.

"Good morning, Khan," the bald man says from where he sits with coffee and saucer in hand, the vampire sitting next to the desk like an obedient dog. "Would you like coffee?" he asks, gesturing to the small kitchenette to the side of the office.

"Tea, please, straight," Michaels says as he strides into the room, replacing his gladius in his belt after flicking vampire blood off of it.

The bald man sets the vampire to get the tea as the Khan picks up the heavy lounge chair from the set and places it in front of the desk, easily kicking aside the simple chair that had been there. He sits in the chair, his large frame barely fitting, and his blood covered armor staining the furniture and carpet. The vampire hobbles into the room, much like a chimpanzee might move, holding the teacup and saucer in one hand while moving. Not a drop is spilled, displaying the masterful control of the undead the bald man has. Richard accepts the cup in his large, heavily clawed hands and smells it deeply before taking a sip.

"Djarleen tea, afternoon blend?" he asks, taking the sip with a simple lick of his tongue out from his muzzle.

"I hear you prefer it, and in anticipation of us ever meeting, I had some put aside," the man says, sipping his own coffee as the vampire resumes its post to the side.

"You possess some foresight," Richard comments, having taken a few sips after blowing on the tea to cool it. "You are intelligent enough to know what comes next."

"Subtle but appropriate, the black flag," the bald man says, twisting his head in a slight nod. "But I do wish to survive, and I presume I have something you want, or I would already be dead."

"Tell me about Tiamat," Richard says, taking another sip of tea.

"Immunity from your people, and safe passage out of your territory," the man counters, then taking a sip of his own hot beverage.

Richard sighs, setting the cup to the side and placing both hands on the arm rests, his claws tearing the fabric as he digs his fingers into it. He is leaned back in the chair in warrior form, silk and steel armoring his body with weapons strapped to him. His expression changes from relaxed to an angry glare as he looks across at the necromancer.

"I can kill you in less than twenty seconds, even with your pet there," Richard says with a wave at the vampire looking at him from five yards away with ruby red, hungry eyes. "You have no leverage here."

"I have information, and I will not give it to you otherwise," the bald man says with a shake of his head. "I have watched you rise as a power in this town, and I understand the rules you play by."

Richard nods slowly, then leaps from the chair, the vampire a split second behind his movement. He grabs the vampire's forehead in his massive hand and crushes the skull as its claws scratch against his armor. He turns immediately and slaps the gun from the bald man's hand, the weapon hitting the glass and spiderwebbing it. He picks the man up by his silk collar and pins him to the wall with a snarl of his monstrous muzzle.

"You all say that," he growls out at the man who is grabbing at his forearm to try and alleviate the pressure. "You have _no_ idea what I am capable of."

He lets that sit for a moment then turns and drops the man on the desk, scattering the papers, pens and computer to the side as the man lands hard on his back. He keeps his clawed hand on the man's throat and neck, pinning him in place as he stares at him with his own alpha glare.

"The human body is an amazing thing. It is durable beyond measure and capable of feats that seem impossible," Richard says darkly and slowly, drawing the words out as he speaks, staring at the bald man pinned to the heavy desk. "The mind, though, can be either strong or weak. But in the end, everyone has a limit, even me. I haven't found what will break me, not yet, but I've been tested. You, now, that is an interesting question…"

Richard's eyes narrow as he looks in the man's eyes, then glances at his hands and the suit he wears, a derisive chuckle escaping his maw.

"You have no idea the levels of pain I can bring to you, the suffering, the torture," Richard says slowly in a soft growl. "Waterboarding is especially effective, in my experience. I once had a were-jackal, a prisoner we took while on a mission near Europe, swore he wouldn't talk about his boss and his mission."

Richard's expressive lips on his tiger-like muzzle quirks into a smile for a moment, "Two days later, I _knew_ that Hugh d'Ambry was the Preceptor of the Iron Dogs, taught by a man named Voron, and the greatest swordsman that ever worked for Roland, a re-awakened man-god from ancient times. I _knew_ that Voron had run off with the boss's wife thirty years earlier and had died at the hands of d'Ambry. I _knew_ that the were-jackal had no immediate family, that they all died except his grandparents who lived in Germany still, and his grandmom kept the valuables in a small shoe polishing box she kept under the floorboards in the back right corner of the sitting room."

Richard's gaze is boring into the bald man's eyes the entire time, the man's level of fear rising as Richard speaks easily of the secrets of the shadows.

"Imagine what I'll _know_ , when I'm done with you…" Richard says with a flash to his eyes.

Richard walks out of the office of the bald man, the head of the People of Houston, mentally exhausted and worn out, though his stride is easy and strong. It had taken just over two hours, but everything he needed had been in the office, making use of the man's clothing for restraints as he went to work. In the end, the man had told him everything, all he knew about Tiamat, and the ones he brought with him. He told him everything he knew about the People, about Roland, about the Iron Dogs. He'd only worked him over for fifty minutes, the rest of the time the man simply talking and nearly crying as he spilled the secrets at painful prodding from Richard.

"Bring him," he says to Jameson who is at the door, and she walks into the office to take the man the Khan had been pulling information from.

"Compound is clear," Mitchell says from where he stands in the hall, vampire blood on his armor and silk robes. "There was a cluster of civilians with three vampires watching them that got released before we could stop them. Twelve innocents dead, but we saved close to fifty."

"Shit," Richard says with feeling, slamming his fist into the stone wall, the rock splitting and falling at the strike.

He takes a breath, recognizing the signs as fatigue and exhaustion, he's nearing his limit.

"Mitchell," he says, turning to the Security Leader and his Beta for tactical situation. "Wrap this up, I am returning to the Bastion. Send word to the local law enforcement, glaze over my conversation with the boss, and tell them we own this property now. I'll work out the details this week at Hoffman's."

"Yes, Khan," the were-jaguar says with a nod of his black furred head.

Richard walks out of the Casino, certain that he will sleep like the dead when he gets to the Bastion.

Richard is running as he passes the longboat by the entrance of the Bastion, but slows when he sees that there is a large gathering of Vikings by the gate, apparently waiting for him. He slows to a trot then a walk as he approaches, recognizing Odin in the center front of the group. He rides a massive horse, which has four hind legs and four front legs, an impossibility, but Richard is looking at the proof, which has simple tack on it and a shiny white coat.

"Odin," Richard says through his toothy maw.

"Khan," Odin replies, still garbed in green Carhart, and with a long bladed spear held easily in his hand to the side.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" Richard asks, looking at the dozen Viking warriors with the All Father.

"My son was badly injured in your defense," Odin says directly, looking firmly at Richard with his one good eye. "We need to discuss the ramifications of his wounds."

Richard ponders the statement for a pair of breaths, realizing he will not get to sleep for a while yet.

"Come inside, let me clean up and change, and we will discuss it," Richard says, waving at the shattered gate and leading the group inside.

Thirty minutes later Richard walks out the back of the cabin to the picnic table in the back yard in human form, jeans, black t-shirt, brown leather vest and weapons. Odin sits at the table with a lamb shank in his hand, eating messily with fat dripping in his bearded chin.

"Wisdom out the wahzoo, but you disdain a fork and knife?" Richard asks as he sits across from the Norse god.

"I have an image to maintain," the elder man says with a chuckle, picking up the large mug of honey ale next to him for a deep drink.

Richard takes a breath and sighs, then launches right into his thoughts, "Thor was hurt protecting me and my family, I am indebted. I presume there's an issue now or in the future you want my help with."

"Winter is coming," Odin says, setting down the lamb shank and beer to look Richard solidly in the eye.

Richard blinks hard for a moment, "Is this a 'Game of Thrones' reference?"

Odin snorts, "No, it is not. I fall into the Odinsleep during winter."

Richard ponders that for a few moments, then continues the thought, "Thor watches your realm while you sleep."

"He will not be healed for six to eight weeks," Odin says simply. "If my wife were here, she could speed it to a fortnight, but she is not, and he does not have the healing ability of you and your people."

Richard nods in understanding, "My people and I will guard your realm in his stead. It is only fitting that we repay the faith that Thor showed me, when I was incapacitated."

"My son is a good man," Odin says with a wistful smile. "He watches over me when I sleep, to ensure I am not harmed, and when seeing his friends in duress, he does the same."

"I'll have that coffee sent to him charged to me," Richard says with a smirk. "And a few kegs of ale as well."

"Send your sister, when she returns," Odin says with a meaningful nod. "She can speed the healing to three to four weeks, with what I have taught her. Your magic is strong, but will not affect a god like him the way it does your own people."

"She's learning how to keep our children from going loup, in Atlanta," Richard says with a slow shake of his head.

"I understand the priorities," Odin says with a slow nod. "Our children are precious gifts to us. Speaking of which, I hear your adopted pups have become a wolf and lion in truth."

Richard gives a small chuckle in response, "We want to protect our kids, to give them everything and shield them from danger. But we can't."

"My son courts danger and challenge every time he can," Odin says with a smile at the other father across from him. "It does not get easier, but we learn ways to cope with it."

"How did you?" Richard asks, curious how Odin the All Father deals with his son in constant danger.

"I had Tyr, the best fighter in all existence teach him to fight," Odin says with a chuckle of remembrance. "Since he's come of age, he has rarely ever lost a fight."

Richard nods thoughtfully, "The Xiangs could use some more students, I think, and it is past time to push Maddie and Jocelyn further."

"We cannot always protect them, but we can arm them for the battles that _will_ come," Odin says, raising his mug to Richard.

Richard raises his own bottle of beer he'd brought out with him and toasts with the Viking All Father.

Autumn moves through the simple forms with her leaf bladed short sword, remembering the last class Richard had given her. This and a quarterstaff are the only weapons she knows how to use, and her brother had taught her some more moves over the last few months. She is far from expert in any of them, but she is better than average folks off the street. She is lost in the slow breathing as she does the Tai-Chi like movements when a voice startles her out of her activity.

"He didn't teach you, did he?" Kate asks from where she had entered the open area on the top of the wing of the Keep.

Autumn relaxes her stance and glances at Kate, the adrenaline in her system making her heart beat frantically. After a moment she resumes her stance and continues her movement and practice.

"No, he didn't," she says as she slices the air with her short blade.

"Who did?" Kate asks, tilting her head as she watches the other woman move. "Your technique is solid, but very textbook, no personalization to it."

"I had no teacher," she says as she shifts to a slash and thrust combo. "My brother and I had a rough childhood with bad parenting, unspeakably bad. He freed us from the oppression of our father, and we had no mentors, no one to guide us and teach us how to survive."

A long pause ensues, and Kate asks, "How did you survive?"

"Books," Autumn says with a smile as she cuts downward slowly, then turning into a spinning slash. "He used to escape into books to forget the life we had, then we both used them to learn how to make a better life for ourselves."

Autumn finishes her exercise, Kate watching, and when she picks up her towel to dry off, Kate motions her to follow her. They walk down through the Keep and outside, to where a large greenhouse is at, and Kate stops in front of a table. The table has nearly two dozen herbs and ingredients in quantities ranging from a few ounces to a gallon of a liquid Autumn can't immediately identify.

"This is what you need to make panacea," Kate says, waving at the ceramic bowls on the table, small note cards beside each indicating the details of each ingredient.

"Has the council decided?" Autumn asks, leaning towards the bowls and cards, reading the details.

"No," Kate says, and Autumn looks at her with a curious expression. "But Curran will beat them into submission, it's what he does. Why waste time waiting? Are you willing to learn?"

"When do we start?" Autumn asks, setting down the towel.

Kate smiles as she gestures to a man who had been pruning a bush nearby to join them, "We already have."

Richard is sitting in his kitchen, sipping a cup of tea as he reads summaries of what had occurred while he was in his coma. Alex had done well in his absence, holding down Hoffman Resources solidly, even managing to buy a chunk of local stock options while he'd been down. Alex had used the pain of the Horde to their advantage, and now that prices are rising, the value of the stock is now soaring. Other investors have now seen and recognized that Houston is on the mend, with a minimal criminal element and a strong group that is enforcing the peace.

He doesn't look up as a scent grows stronger in his nose, "Good afternoon, Mischa."

Mischa walks slowly and stiffly into the room, her wounds closed but her body still catching up to all the healing it has done in the last day. She sits at the table, weak but determined to put on a hard face for the Khan, and to tell him the truth. He rises from his chair and walks to the fridge, pulling out some cut up summer sausage and cheese onto a plate, placing it in front of her.

"Eat," he say simply as he sits across from her, opening a beer as he does. "And I already know, you slept with Tasha."

Mischa freezes, having been reluctantly reaching for the food, "How did you know?"

"The bedroom smells of Tasha after she climaxes," he says with a tight smile. "And your own, as well, as you didn't use wolfsbane to mask the scents. She mentioned once, that you and she dated, and the scent made sense. You just confirmed it."

Mischa looks down for a moment, then raises her chin and looks him solidly in the eye, "I love her. And, as much as it weirds me out, I love you, too."

Richard smiles at her, "I wouldn't have it any other way, Mish. Not any other way at all."

"What?" Mischa asks, blinking at his response.

"You keep her grounded, and strong, when I'm not here, and she does the same for me," he says with a slight shake of his head. "You are loyal, strong, and when my children were in danger, you risked your life to protect them. You suffered and fought to keep them safe against tremendous odds."

"I only did what any person would do," Mischa says with a shrug and a glance to the side, uncomfortable with his praise.

"You did what an Alpha would do," Richard corrects her with a firm look at her. "I'm going to talk to Tasha, and I want you to be the Clan Cat Alpha, with hand-picked members of the Pride to back you up. That will let me and Tasha focus on the bigger picture more, and give you the position you deserve."

Mischa shakes her head, "I slept with your wife and you want to give me a promotion."

Richard laughs at the statement, "In that wording, yeah, not a good thing. But you are deserving of it, Mish. And we trust you."

Mischa nods and stands, then walks around the table and leans down hesitantly, kissing him on the lips briefly before turning and leaving him. Richard watches her turn and leave, and a part of his mind wonders if he'll get his ass chewed by his wife for letting her kiss him.

Richard is standing on the platform over the barn, looking at the rows of houses and buildings in the Bastion in the mid-afternoon light. He has been trying to keep up with what has been happening, and with all the reports read, he is processing what he must do next. The obvious moves are there, but he knows that his opponent is clever and smart, he has to do the unexpected. But Tiamat knows that, and so he is now looking at double and triple guessing his own moves, wondering what he should do next.

"Dollar for your thoughts," Tasha says, walking onto the platform, the two of them alone as they look over the Bastion.

"He knows me," Richard says with a hard frown. "Not a set of reports or a spy's insight. This man knows me, he knows how I think, how I operate, how I look at problems and how I solve them."

Tasha frowns as she walks to him, hugging him from behind, "Roland has a lot of resources and information we don't. That's probably where he got the intel."

Richard frowns hard, looking at the clouds, "No. This man knows me, specifically. He's been slightly surprised by you, but not me. He knew I'd attack the Casino, even if not the details of it. _Knew_ it. That means he knows me better than a set of worded after action reports."

"So, you think you knew him?" Tasha says after a moment of silence, her own eyes looking into the distance, though her cheek rests on his back shoulder.

He purses his lips in thought, "I think it's something bigger, something… different. Tiamat was a Babylonian Goddess of Anarchy and the Mother of Dragons, and mother to the world. This is a bit off character without being downright wrong."

"Remember what we learned about Erra, that he was a woman," Tasha reminds him, information Curran had given them in broad strokes.

"She corrupted local and special sources to recreate her mythos," Richard says with pursed lips. "I think Tiamat is doing the same. What I am racking my brain about is how to get out from behind the eight ball, how do we stop playing catchup and lead instead?"

Tasha is silent, having beaten her own brain for the same answers, and the two of them having already talked that they need to approach the problem differently.

"There are the Umu Dabrutus, and Quingu with the bull man and eleven others, still out there," Richard says with a frown. "And that's from the Mythos, the Necromancer didn't know much about the details."

"Were you able to get more from him?" Tasha asks, the head of the Houston's People locked in a cell in the tunnels beneath the Bastion, with a few of their people doing interrogation to pull info from him.

"Tiamat only let him know the very basics, and if I were him, it would have been disinformation," Richard says with a hard frown. "He told him he had planned for the spider to disobey, it was part of the plan."

"For a god of chaos, he sure does plan a lot," Tasha remarks with a hard frown as she lowers herself to sit on the platform, but Richard still standing and staring hard at the distance. "There's something else, what is it?"

"I know you and Mischa were fooling around while I was out," he says, still looking into the distance, and Tasha swallows with a touch of nervousness in the pause.

"And…" Tasha says, leading him, because she is certain he has already come to a conclusion, she just hopes she will not be heartbroken at the end of it.

"If it were anyone else, I would be angry, upset, or jealous," he says simply, turning to her, and his hard expression softening to a gentle smile. "As it stands, I'm glad you have her, to help when I'm not around. And I think it's time to give her Clan Cat."

Tasha blinks and looks at him with surprise then calculation as she assesses his suggestion. She ponders it and looks at it from a number of angles as he turns back to the distance and studies the early afternoon light. After a minute of thought she responds.

"I agree, it will work," she says with a nod. "This is long term, not short term, like when we first built up the Clan and Horde, isn't it?"

Richard smiles warmly as he looks over his shoulder at where she is leaning back on her elbows, looking up at him suspiciously.

"I was the leader of Cat, with only my mate a rival, and I've taken control of everything now, and am trying to get the Clans to work together, but in a way, I'm just the best among equals, as we also do the job of the Cat Clan Alphas," he explains, though there's an underlying tone she detects and she pounces on it.

"You're five steps ahead already, aren't you?" she asks, rising up to a sitting position.

"In that thought process, yes," he says with a nod, scowling at the night. "Tiamat is what's bothering me."

Tasha looks at him with a sympathetic look, knowing he is doing all he can to try and protect his people, his family. As they sit in companionable silence, Maddie rises the stairs in light blue pajamas in human form, Richard glances and nods as she sits next to Tasha.

"What are you guys talking about?" Maddie says around a yawn, having seen them from her room and decided to come visit.

"The bad guy that is still threatening us," Richard says. "These guys were just minions. I'm trying to figure out how to take out the boss."

"Just attacking him won't work?" Maddie asks, leaning her head in Tasha's lap, the were-lion stroking her hair gently.

"No," he says with a sigh. "He's studied me, how I do things, and he's planned very well, with more resources than I have, and more time to set it up. He knows how I normally react to problems and he's a step ahead."

"So do something different," Maddie says, her brow furrowed in thought, the adults speaking to her as a near equal.

"We know that, but everything I think of he'll guess," Richard says with a frown at the night. "Same with Tasha, in general, and everyone in the Horde is too familiar."

Maddie thinks hard on this as Richard continues to think of his assets in town, also thinking over old connections from the Army and Merc Guild.

"That guy from the Order, the jerk that hates you?" Maddie asks, and Richard blinks at the odd question, looking at her as she continues, "Why don't you ask him what he would do, they wouldn't expect you to ask someone who hates you and wishes you didn't exist, right?"

Richard blinks at her several times as he processes the suggestion, then smiles at her, "From the mouths of babes."

"Teenager," Maddie corrects with a smile up at him. "I'm glad you're back, Rick. You talk to us like we're people instead of kids."

Richard chuckles, shaking his head, "Speaking of treating you like people. You and Jocelyn will begin Kung Fu classes with the Xiang family starting tomorrow."

"Whoa, I didn't sign up for any classes," Maddie says, rising to a seated position.

"In a way, you did," Richard says with a solemn look at her. "You know better than most that this can be a rough world, and I'm not always going to be there to save you or help you. You need to learn how to defend yourself, and when the time comes, to defend others."

Maddie frowns in reactive teenage rebellion, "I don't want to learn Kung Fu."

"Pick something else equitable, and I'll get you a teacher," Richard says with a shrug. "But you will learn something."

Maddie pouts, frowning hard and after a long moment mutters, "Fine, I'll learn Kung Fu."

Richard smiles and fights not to chuckle as he turns back to the night, the idea of asking a man who despises him entertaining him beyond measure.

Natalie Rushman, Master-at-Arms, Firearm, sits in the conference room with what remains of the Order of Merciful Aid, Houston Chapter. She is five and a half feet tall, slim athletic of build and with dark red hair on her head, wearing gray leather pants and jacket. The Order was nearly thirty strong two weeks ago, now they have just under twenty, and their Chapter head, Knight Protector Reynolds, is dead. Natalie is second in command, and the guy in charge is Knight Inspector Daniels, the bigoted investigator she's been partnered with for a year now. The Knights are all sitting morosely around the table, having finished giving their individual accounts of the last few days, from the failed Raid to the cleansing of the mobs, the attack on the Bastion, such as they know, and the Khan's destruction of the People.

Now they all sit and stare at the tabletop, with Daniels, a sharp featured man with finger length dirty blond hair and standing normally just over six feet tall, frowns hard at the stack of papers before him.

"This isn't over, people," he says firmly, looking around at the Knights at the table. "We know that this guy calling himself Tiamat is still out there, and there's likely more monsters with him. We need to stop him."

"The Khan and his Horde can't stop him," the rookie in the room says with a nervous look around and a note of hysteria. "If that guy can't do it, what chance do we have?"

"We are Knights," Daniels says with a scowl at the rookie and glare to the room. "We do not quit when things get tough, we buckle down and we fight through it. We win."

There's a long pause, and Natalie speaks the question everyone has on their minds, "How?"

Before Daniels can respond, the only Knight not in the room bursts through the door with a shocked expression on his face, "The Khan, he's here."

Richard sits in the same interrogation chamber he had sat in not long after he had first become a shapeshifter. The difference this time being that he's not a prisoner, and there's a table with four chairs in it, he and Tasha across from Natalie and Daniels.

"Natalie, did you do something to your hair?" Tasha asks amiably, and the other woman glances at Daniels, but answers.

"I've been letting it loose more, it's brought out the waves and body," she says as she tucks a dark red curl behind an ear.

"I don't give a shit about hair," Daniels says, his glare fixed on Richard. "Why are you here, Michaels?"

"I know who this guy is, who sent him, just like you do," Richard says with a calm expression at the older man. "This guy, he's here to throw Houston into chaos, and his main target is me."

"Wow, vain much?" Daniels says with a look of derision at Richard.

"Humility is not a Ranger word," Richard says with a smirk at the other man. "Name one person in a thousand miles that could take me one on one."

Daniels pauses for a long moment before replying, "Tiamat."

"When he took me by surprise and unaware," Richard says with no change of expression. "And I survived the encounter. I'm the best chance of getting this guy, of stopping him before more Cops, Knights and Texas Rangers are killed."

Daniels simply glares across at Michaels, "God, I hate you."

"Who do you hate more, me or him?" Richard asks, never breaking eye contact.

Daniels continues to glare at Richards, narrows his eyes at the former soldier and stands up, shoving his chair back and gesturing to the door, "Get the fuck out. I'm not working with you."

Michaels frowns hard at Daniels, his jaw clenching then standing up as he shoves his own chair back to the wall, his eyes flashing as he stalks out of the room. Tasha frowns at the pair as she leaves as well, her own eyes flashing at the betrayal of the Order against those seeking aid against evil. The door closes and Natalie turns to him with barely contained anger of her own at her current boss.

"Are you out of your mind?" she asks, the room soundproofed and warded so heavily no one could look inside. "He asked for help and you spit in his face?"

"Pay attention, Rushman," Daniels says with a scowl as he walks round the table to right the chairs. "I didn't say no, I said I wouldn't work with him. He's being watched, if he leaves here with us helping, they'll know."

"And then they'll adjust their plans," she says with an understanding nod.

"They see the Alphas leave here pissy and glowing with anger, we're off their radar," he says, leaning on the table and crossing his arms with a scowl. "Now, we need to make a plan to track this bastard down, so that when we find him, we can point the Khan at him to take him out, with us and anyone else we can muster to back him up."

"How do you plan to do that?" she asks, frowning hard herself.

"I don't know, I'm delegating that to you," he says with a gesture to her. "I'm too busy fixing shit with the city in general to figure it out, plus I'll be working to get people together. I don't have time to track him, too. Take Knudson with you if you think you can trust him. He transferred from Atlanta a few years back cuz he couldn't stand the Knight Protector there, he's got experience and will help."

Natalie frowns, blinking hard as she realizes the heft of the task put on her, track down the god that's been killing indiscriminately in the city and point a killer were-tiger at him, hoping for the best.

Daniels chuckles with a dark undertone, "Yeah, don't fuck up, Rushman."

Daniels turns and leaves the room with his characteristic scowl, to try to keep the Order from falling into depression and disarray, knowing that finding Tiamat is the best way to do that.

Natalie walks into the warehouse in what used to be Black Market Alley, flashlight held out as the tech is in swing, a pistol on her hip and gun across her back. She doesn't trust Knudson enough to bring him in on this, so she set out on her own, and come to the first scene that Tiamat had been reported at. She reaches the place where the ground is smashed and crumbled, looking like someone turned into the Incredible Hulk and decided to just hammer the ground into submission. She looks at the scene, and finds that there is smeared blood in the crater, someone had taken a heavy beating here, and then someone had come and dumped bleach on it so the blood would be useless.

"That is from the Khan," a female voice says from the shadows.

Natalie draws on reflex, her pistol up alongside her flashlight as she points to a surviving wall to the side. After a moment, a pair of hands emerge, showing they are empty, and a face she recognizes slowly emerges as well, Mrs. Domasca. She eases the pistol down, relatively certain that she is not an enemy, but doesn't holster the weapon.

"I was in Atlanta when this happened," Domasca says as she slowly emerges from the shadows. She is wearing leather pants, a maroon silk shirt and brown leather jacket, a bag over her shoulder with herbs in it, a staff in hand. Her two foot long wavy black hair is tied back in the nape of her neck and her skin is pale in the darkness over her trim figure. "I received reports on what happened as I traveled back, and instead of returning, I hid with my family, the Witches and Vohls."

"Why? Are you abandoning the shapeshifters?" Natalie asks, this one of only a few non-shapeshifters in the pack through marriage.

"The Khan has brought my husband and I into his fold," she denies with a shake of her head. "I'm here for the same reason you are. The Khan is known by this enemy, we must approach it from a different angle, and when we have a solution, we present it to him, and he ends this threat."

Natalie turns back to the torn up crater of concrete and dirt and shakes her head in awe and a touch of despair, "If this guy did _this_ to Rick, I'm scared of the guy."

"The man did not do anything but cast a curse on him, Richard did that," Domasca says as she walks up next to the knight, her own flashlight out now. "It was a curse to cause loupism, but I think it was actually intended for something else, not intended for shapeshifters, and was simply used for this purpose."

"Rick did this," Natalie says to clarify, seeing it in a new light. "Who was he beating on?"

"Himself," Domasca says with a frown. "He changed, and he could not stop the loupism in his body, so he held his body in place, even though he had no control over the body. Thor came and beat him into unconsciousness while the Khan held the beast still."

"His inner monster was forced out, and Richard held it in place while Thor beat him with his hammer?" Natalie says, looking at the ground and her investigator's mind piecing together the struggle, such as it was. "Okay, I take it back, I'm scared of Rick."

"Don't be, he is on our side," Domasca says absently, stopping ten yards from the crushed rubble and kneeling down. "Shine light on this so I can collect a sample."

Natalie comes over and shines light on the scrap of clothing, and she frowns as she looks at it, "What is it?"

"A piece of the Khan's clothing," Domasca says with a slow smile. "When a shapeshifter shifts into another form, the clothes do not vanish or burn, they rip off, so they are still here, they were not collected."

She flashes the light around with narrowed eyes, "Look for clothing, armor, twine, anything that may have been his armor, we need to collect all of it."

"Why?" Natalie asks, doing as instructed and pulling out her own evidence bags.

"The Khan said the man used blood magic, using his own blood," Domasca says as she picks up another piece. "If his blood is on the clothing, I will find it, and then I will show him some curses of my own."

Richard is on the platform of the barn, a long iron bokken in his hands as he goes through the fighting forms for his katana. He had been practicing with gladius and axe for so long, the longer blade motions are not as sharp as they should be, and he focuses on it, needing to be in top form when he faces Tiamat again. A drum sounds from the front gate, and he slows and stops practicing as the signal comes through, _Allies sending message_.

He stops his forms and turns to the gate, watching as it opens and a were-coyote darts in, a hybrid form between man and beast, but only six feet tall. Richard leaps off the barn, knowing the reason before the message is relayed, that the Nation is under attack.

Richard is riding a horse at a dead run, wearing jeans, t-shirt, brown leather vest and his weapons belt with bow and arrow. Six others are with him, Jameson and her team, plus Mischa, Mitchell and the rest of security remaining at the Bastion. It may not be enough for whatever Tiamat sent, but he can't leave his own people unprotected. So he had taken the better fighters, Jameson's group, and Tasha had insisted he take a partner, Mischa.

They are all riding hard, their mounts frothing at the mouth as they run hard down the dirt road to the village of the Nation. Richard surveys the scene as they ride, a large dome of a ward around the village glowing blue in the afternoon light. He can see a number of figures at the edge of the ward, hammering it hard with weapons. They get closer and he leaps from his horse a hundred yards away, the others doing the same behind him.

There are eight of the figures, seven feet tall, wide in the shoulders like a power lifter, jointed knees like a cat. They are covered in what looks like green, scaly hide, with an additional set of appendages reaching over their shoulders like boney, articulated legs from a spider. They all carry large weapons suited for their large statures, double bladed battle axes, maces on long handles, broadswords. Their faces are monstrous mixes with overlarge teeth, heavy jaws, thick brow ridges and heavy waved ridges on their foreheads.

"So, barbarian half-dragon orcs," Richard says as he looks at the monsters that turn from the ward towards them, the creatures wearing loincloths only.

"Technically, they're demons," Mischa says from beside him, her own bow held low before her, looking to the sides as she looks at bodies of a number of the Nation's warriors. "The Nation lost nearly all its magic because America was settled through genocide, they are strangers in their own lands. Their magic is not strong enough to harm these demons."

"Magic weapons only," Richard calls, pulling his gladius from his belt and tossing it to one of the were-leopards with them that has none. "We use our enchanted arrows until we are out, then go melee."

He pulls and fires with the last, firing at a flat arc and the others join him, but the monsters bat the arrows away as they walk forward, their weapons and extra limbs flashing quickly. They don't close until all the explosive heads are expended, then move forward quickly. Richard drops his bow to the side and pulls off the quiver.

"They are as fast as a shapeshifter, so fight smart, switch opponents and tag off, our teamwork is what will pay off," he says as the monsters start to run at them. "The big one in the middle with the battle axe is mine," he snarls, pulling a kurki from his belt, having coated the blade in his blood and imbuing it with his being so he could push his magic into it.

He twirls the kurki absently to the side as the largest of the monsters, a behemoth of a mixed breed monster standing a hand over seven feet. The monster raises his axe high to bring down, its extra limbs reared back to stab forward and it leaps up into the air. Richard watches the monster rise up with its axe tilting to the side to swipe at him, the limbs poised to stab at whichever direction he goes. He darts and dives forward, though, under its jump, turns and leaps, landing on its back, his left hand with talons gripping the tough hide, and chopping the extremity with the kurki. He is pushing magic into it heavily, and the quarter of an inch thick blade of good steel is coated in flames as he hacks off one limb in two chops, then turns and hacks the other off higher in only one.

The monster is howling and trying to get to him, but he hops from the back as it turns, landing on his toes and one hand touching the ground, flicking the kurki to the side absently and on instinct to clear it of blood. The monster is roaring and raising its axe high, but Richard leaps at its chest, chopping in air backhanded into the armpit on his left. The draconic spawn stumbles back under the unexpected attack and weight, the pain and muscles chopped on his arm to the bone. Richard has risen up as they fall to the thing's back, riding his weight to his right side and the one good arm left.

Richard rises the kurki high and chops down into the thick neck with a blaze of fire trailing the blade of the kurki as it cuts through the thick neck completely. He looks up from the dead monster, though its arterial blood is still spraying across the dirt road on the outskirts of the Nation's village. His people are engaging, but fighting defensively as he'd instructed, and already he can see that his quick, brutal victory is boosting their morale. He leaps onto the back of a monster Mischa is backing away from while deflecting and blocking with Tasha's sabre.

Richard lands on its back and chops down hard into the shoulder then hops off and rolls to the side, while scanning the area, trusting Mischa to finish it. He finds one of his people in trouble and dashes that way to help.

Richard bows again to the Elders of the Nation, having just finished a two hour discussion of how the attack happened and what the results are. They had tried to defend, but none of their weapons had penetrated the demons' hide. The resulting battle had been a slaughter, and the Elders had managed to get those not buying them time into the ward they had erected. Though nearly half their young warriors and fighters had died protecting them, and the ward had been failing, the were-coyote had been a sentry that had seen the start of the slaughter and ran for help.

"Thank you, Khan," the elders intone together. "We would not have been able to stop them without your intervention."

"We can discuss it at the Conclave," Richard reassures them as he shakes hands with each of them. "I have other business of the Horde to attend to."

His last goodbyes complete, he strides away from the Nation's leaders and through the small crowd of grateful humans, a handful of shapeshifters mixed in with magic users and those devoid of magic. They all nod thank you in gratitude as he passes, and he nods in return until he is clear of them and with his people, leaving the village. When they are two hundred yards away and trotting at a fast clip that shapeshifters can maintain easily, he speaks.

"The endgame is coming, the final battle," he says in a rasp, all those with him able to hear him. "Don't think of me or him, the city or the state or country. Think only of the Horde, of our families, our friends. If we fail, they all die, just like California."

They trot the rest of the way in silence, most receiving only superficial wounds in the melee, some more than others, but all able to run. They all contemplate the Khan's words, and the battles that lie ahead of them.

Natalie is sitting at a large, heavy wooden table in the Witches' park in Houston, Mrs. Domasca across from her, and they both sit back after looking over their findings again. They had spent hours gathering the materials from the site, and even now, having spent even more hours with help from the Witch's family, they frown at the results. Only a third of the armor and clothing could be found, and of that only half had not been drenched with bleach or ammonia. So they are looking at the patch work remains of the armor on the table.

"Did he say where he was cut, for the blood curse?" Natalie asks, looking at the scraps of cloth, metal and twine on the table.

"Left arm, elbow," Domasca says, her own eyes already on that portion of the armor.

Natalie leans forward, inspecting the area there, but with Domasca looking, she instead leans back and takes a moment to think. If he had been cut, it would bleed, and land on his body, most likely his thigh or leg. She turns and starts to study the plate from the thigh, the kneecap plate and plate for the top of the foot. She looks at each piece of metal, finding nothing, until she reaches the foot piece.

"Look here," she says quietly, staring at the flexible plate that covers the foot, enameled with a dull blood red.

Domasca shifts from where she is intensely studying the elbow, forearm and bicept, looking for blood. She moves down to the spot of blood on the plate and murmurs under her breath an incantation, then quirks an eyebrow.

"It is a mixed sample," she says with a slow inhale. "The Khan's and Tiamat's. It's not pure. I'm not sure what I can do with this. If I use it, it will curse both."

Natalie narrows her eyes, "Take enough to cast your spell."

"If I do, it will curse them both," Domasca says again, looking now at the other woman.

"Exactly," Natalie says with a smirk, a plan formulating in her mind.

Richard is sitting next to the barn, organizing his armor and weapons for his human form, this set a dull gray and black, the first armor he had made. With the set Tasha and the Pride had decorated destroyed, this is the backup set, and the set after this is his old Merc gear, not as protective as this. He can hear a high pitched keening in the night, the man-spider in the arena, pinned down to stakes and still alive, but barely. When he had finished defeating the attack on the Bastion, he had gone back to where the monster was trying to drag itself across the sand. He had tied each extremity out and staked it down. Now it lies face up in the center of the arena, like a pithed insect, dying slowly.

"Doesn't that bother you?" Mischa says as she approaches from behind him, frowning.

"It's distracting in that it muffles the other sounds of the Bastion," Richard says simply, setting down the red colored kurki he had used earlier that day.

"But it's dying, slowly and painfully," Mischa says with a frown.

"It hurt my children, and nearly killed you," he says, lowering the kurki and turning from where he kneels at the armor and equipment. "Do you think it should receive mercy for those crimes?"

"No," Mischa says with a shake of her head, remembering how bad she had been hurt, how she was helpless when Maddie's cry filled the air. "But I don't know how you can do it, is all."

"I have done far worse, I think," Richard says with a sigh of his own, his expression softening as he rises, running a hand through his inch long faded haircut. "We crucified a man in Madagascar, when the locals wouldn't cooperate. I did the same a couple times when I was in New Orleans, during the flood."

Mischa blinks at the frank admission, "That's bad."

"Worse than you think," he says with a tight frown, walking to arms reach of her, meeting her eyes steadily. "It takes days to die that way, the body is held upright, but the arms are higher, so you have to push with your legs to breath. The healthier the person, the longer they last before exhaustion causes their leg and arm muscles to fail, and they suffocate. A person can last three days or longer, even if there's no water provided, a shapeshifter, over a week easily. A week of conscious pain, gasping and fighting for breath every moment. That's the worst death I've ever seen."

"I…" Mischa says blankly with a shake of her head.

"If I hadn't done it, bad men would have killed innocent people, on all those accounts," he says with a hard expression. "Innocent people like Maddie, Jocelyn, the Sochims, and the hundreds of other families in the Horde that want to simply live their life and exist. This monster came here to kill us all, you know that. Fanatics are always willing to die for their cause, but torture, pain, _suffering_ , for days on end. Even the most loyal follower will spill everything and beg for mercy."

Mischa swallows hard, thinking over his hard, harsh words, tempered by years of warfare and real world experience. Her own expression hardens, "You're telling me this because you and Tasha agreed to have me lead the Cat Clan."

Richard nods, "Yes. And you need to think like an Alpha, someone who is responsible for more than just yourself and your immediate family. You are responsible for it _all_."

She takes a deep breath to steady herself as the reality of his statement sinks in, then she blinks and looks at him closely, her eyes intent on him, "How do you do it? How do you do the things you have to and not go mad? Be a man and not just the Khan?"

Richard smiles gently at her, then grins, "I have a wife that I love, children that look to me for protection and guidance. Friends who I can count on when I need help. If I had to do this alone, I would go mad, and that is why I never sought these burdens when I was a Merc. If it wasn't for Tasha, I would never have stayed in the Pack."

Mischa nods slowly as he answers, understanding, "I could not do what you do, but I can be Clan Cat's Alpha."

"Take Mitchell, as your Male Alpha, I'm keeping Alex in the Clan, but he'll work for me, I need him for Hoffman's," he says, past the point of friction and now working out the details.

"How much of the Pride can I take with me?" she asks.

Richard chuckles, "Asking the wrong guy. Talk to Tasha about that, they are her lions, you are just borrowing them."

Mischa frowns crookedly, then nods, "We'll work it out." She looks at the armor and weapons laid out, "You look like you are preparing for war."

"We've defeated all the monsters from the mythos save the bull-man and eleven others led by Quingu, as well as Tiamat himself," he says with a twist of his head. "It will be over soon, one way or another."

As he says this, a call is made from the front gates, and he recognizes the signal clearly, _Female Wolf Alpha returning_.

"Begin to assemble everyone now," Richard says, shifting automatically to Khan mode, Mischa nodding then turning away and shouting orders to those around them in the Bastion.

He meets Bridgette at the gate with two fresh horses and she reins in before him on a startled mount, "Come with me, we'll talk on the way."

She nods and dismounts, mounting the fresh horse and the two of them trot out of the gate again on horses, and he speaks over the pounding hooves.

"What have you found?" he asks, his first question.

"I know where he is, and I can curse him," she says in a breathy voice, not yelling, as she knows he can hear her regardless. "But if I curse him, it will affect you as well, as the blood was mixed."

"Be ready with the strongest curse your Coven can muster, when I confront Tiamat. Right now, we are going to heal Thor," Richard says as they continue the fast trot of the horses in the twisting dirt road. "You, me and Odin, together. I need him for this battle coming up. If we don't have him, our odds of winning are very low."

Bridgette nods grimly, "I understand."

They ride the rest of the way in silence as Bridgette focuses on how she can heal a god of thunder with the aid of the All Father and a First among Shapeshifters, the back of her mind contemplating the curse she will use on him and Tiamat.

Richard jumps from his horse in front of the Viking Longhouse, Bridgette reining in and halting before she can dismount. Richard doesn't wait, but strides into the hall and walks directly to where Odin sits at the head of the hall, stopping only a few yards from the chair.

"Clear the room, this needs to be only you, me and the Witch," Richard says immediately, and the few dozen Vikings in the room bristle at the tone.

"Leave us!" Odin barks without pause, but Ragnar moves forward.

"My lord," he says in a firm whisper, "we are your people."

"You may stay Ragnar, as the king, but this discussion cannot leave this hall," Odin says with a fierce glower at the red bearded king.

"My lord," Ragnar says then shouts and yells at the others, kicking them all from the hall as Bridgette arrives next to Richard.

Odin waits until it is only the four of them before speaking, "No one can hear within these walls, I have seen to it."

"I mean to heal Thor, now, with you, me and the Russian working together," Richard says without preamble. "Tiamat is the creator of dragons, and the next monsters we meet will likely be kin to them. I need Thor by our side, or our chances drop badly."

"How badly?" Ragnar asks, his eyes narrowed as he holds his hands on his axe head.

"One in twenty, at best," Richard says quietly, but firmly for all that. "With Thor, it's much better, if I can juggle the events right. If Thor is not healed and you stand against Tiamat and his champions, your people will cease to be. If you enter the Odinsleep from healing Thor, you will awaken to your people in the spring."

"You just said you will be fighting numerous dragons and this god Tiamat, who bested you before," Ragnar says with a glance at Odin. "Why would you succeed now, when you did not before?"

"Odin?" Richard asks, looking to the one eyed god.

Odin looks down from his wooden throne at the were-tiger, then reaches to the side and pulls out a wrap of deerskin with a long narrow object in it.

"It is finished, as promised," Odin says with a nod, handing the wrap to Richard. "Let us go to my son, and attempt this healing. We have little time, I think, as the magic returned a few hours ago, and I believe that this will be over by the end of the tide."

"For certain, one way or another," Richard agrees, following the All Father to the room that holds Thor.

Richard rides back into the Bastion with Bridgette and over fifty Vikings at his back, all dressed and ready for battle. He slides from the saddle in front of the cabin, Tasha walking out in full human armor, the girls beside her.

"It's time," Richard says simply, walking past the porch to where his armor is waiting for him.

Next to his armor are the other Alphas of the Horde. Noel in his own armor and a massive battle axe in his hands, his bad eye half formed in his head but with partial sight now. With him is Thomas Domasca in warrior form with armor and weapons, his toothy maw the thing of nightmares. Jameson is also in warrior form, a manic glint to her eye, and a large Hyena next to her in animal form and armor, her boyfriend and male Alpha of the Clan. Jay stands in his own warrior form, clad in gray armor and alone for his Clan. Mischa is in warrior form and in intricate armor highlighted with brass for color, Mitchell beside her with armor that features silver highlights.

"Is everyone ready?" Richard asks, shedding his clothes with no hesitation or shame, now comfortable in his nudity as nearly all shapeshifters are.

"We have gathered everyone willing to fight, Khan," Noel says with a nod. "They have armor and weapons, the stockpiles you had laid on are nearly gone, but we had enough for everyone."

"How many, all told?" he asks as Tasha, Maddie and Jocelyn hand him robes for his armor.

"Two hundred and fifteen," Noel says with a glance at the others with him. "I've detailed sixty five of that to stay here and guard those that remain."

"Good," Richard says with a nod, quickly donning his robes and armor, testing the set of it all as he does. "Once I am dressed, we go into battle, I know where Tiamat is. We will go to him, and fight him and his remaining champions."

"The legend says that there will be a bull man with eleven others, led by Tiamat's champion, Quingu," Thomas says, his words barely understood through his teeth and tongue.

"Tiamat is the creator of dragons, their progenitor," Richard says. "In the myths it was mother of dragons, and this is a he, but I see no reason for the rest not to hold. We have seen two massive dragons already, and the demons that attacked the Nation were dragon kin. I can't imagine that these champions he has left are not kin as well."

"What is the plan?" Jay asks, his posture upright and his jackal muzzle and ears looking elegant compared to the others.

"With one fifty, I want everyone broken into groups of ten," Richard says firmly. "Three tens to the next sized group, platoons. Keep people familiar with each other together. That gives us five platoons of shapeshifters in armor and weapons, with Vikings, Witches and Vohls backing us up."

"The Russians are helping?" Noel asks, surprised.

"They helped find them, through Mrs. Domasca, and will aid us in any magical means we need," he explains. "They are to be protected, as I am certain these creatures we will fight will be heavy with magic, and we will need their help."

The Alphas all nod, and Richard waves them away, "Go, organize our people. We leave shortly."

Richard continues to don the last of his armor, the process a practiced drill for him, sped along with help from the others. When the armor is set, he picks up his weapons belts and begins affixing them to his armor, a process he does personally, so he is certain nothing is missed. When he is done, he turns to the two young girls who had helped him, both in black jeans and blue blouses.

"The Sochims are staying here with you, while I'm gone," Richard says with a look at both of them. "I know Atticus is a bit grumpy most the time, and speaks in riddles, but listen to them, okay?"

"Are you going to be okay?" Jocelyn asks, her face tight with worry.

Richard kneels next to the nearly eleven year old girl and tucks a brown strand of hair behind her ear, "I won't lie, I'm probably going to be hurt pretty bad, and it may take me a while to bounce back, and there is a chance I won't win. In which case you need to go with your sister and the Sochims to where it's safe, in Atlanta."

Jocelyn frowns hard at him, "You can't lose. You have to win."

Richard smiles tightly at her, picking up the leather wrap from the side, "I don't intend to, which is why I have this."

He unwraps the supple deerskin leather, and reveals a sword, covered in a thin leather sheath. He angles the sword to show the two girls the hilt, a circular handle of wood with silver and gold inlaid and under lacquer, leather artfully woven around it to display the designs and enhance the grip. The handle is large enough for two hands, angled slightly back like a katana, but the butt of the handle is as though it were cut straight across from a tree, to include fine rings of gold and silver within it indicating hundreds of years. The crossguard is nearly non-existent, a guard like a tsuba from a katana fashioned in a silvery alloy that is not metal, and with a tiger and lion engraved on it.

When they have oohed over that for a few moments, he draws the blade, and reveals a long blade similar to a katana's blade, but with a back blade on the top third and the bottom third of the blade, and with Nordic runes etched on the blade, the bottom third serrated. The blade is flat steel color with a slight washed look to it, the runes etched in carefully, hundreds running down the length of the flat of the blade, the beveling untouched by the washing. Richard smiles as the girls aah at the sight of the intricacy of the blade, and they tentatively reach out to touch it.

"Its name is Krigsherre," Richard says in a soft, reverent tone as he raises the sword up to flash in the light of the torches. "It is a gift from Odin, a debt from when I fought Thor, months ago. Its name means Warlord, in Norwegian. He forged it specifically for me."

"Is it like Mjolnir?" Maddie asks, her brow furrowed slightly as she thinks. "Controlling weather, and stuff?"

"Not that I know of," Richard says with a smirk. "But it is magic of the gods, and I can push fire and ice into it, as I have done with my own weapons. And others can use it, I think."

"Time and trials will tell what it can do," Tasha says from beside him, her own hand on her saber at her hip as he sheathes his in the same place on his belt, his gladius on his back with his quiver now.

"Promise me, both of you, to listen to the Sochims," Richard says, bending over with a hand on each girl's shoulder.

Maddie frowns but they both respond yes, and he nods his acceptance of their word. He gives no promises or expectations, but strides to where a black warhorse is sitting and waiting for him with a teenage were-bear holding the reins. Richard pauses as he gives Joachim a hard stare, the youth remembering all too well the promise the Khan had made, and the feats he has accomplished since.

"Don't let anything hurt them," Richard says low, pausing to check straps on the horse unnecessarily. "And if things go bad, go to Atlanta, they are friends there."

Joachim nods, his face hard, "Yes, khan."

Richard mounts and turns the horse away, riding to the gate with Tasha at his side on her own horse. He looks back at where sixty shapeshifters ride horses, forty trot in animal form with armor on, and another thirty in warrior form stride in armor with spears and weapons behind him. He smirks and looks across at Tasha, her own armor in brown and gold, her hair styled so that there are cornrows with tight braids along the sides of her head, the top pulled into a single braid down the back. She has on makeup and mascara, adding to her effect on him, and he grins a warrior's grin to her which she returns.

"What are you thinking?" Tasha asks, smiling at him, wishing she could kiss him.

"I'm a Khan leading a Horde of angry, armored shapeshifters with a Nimir-ra Lioness at my side, to fight a Babylonian god of chaos and discord and his chosen champions," Richard says with a tight smile.

"You were born for this, my love," Tasha says with a smile at him, it growing crooked.

"No, not born," he corrects with a crooked, wistful smile of his own. "I was _made_ for it, over time."

She doesn't say anything as he brings his horse to a trot, the Horde following, the glint in his eye of a warrior eager for combat as he leads his people to war.

Natalie sighs wearily as she enters her apartment, tired and exhausted from the last week of crazy stressful events. She closes the door behind her, locking it and turning to the main area of the apartment, but stopping dead in her tracks as she looks at the torn hole in her ward on the window, and the man standing beside it.

"Things are crazy at the Order, I presume?" Tiamat asks, his hands clasped behind him as he moves from his position by the window, the helmet tilted to the side as he watches her carefully.

Natalie takes a deep breath, knowing how fast he is, and she'd never get the crossbow off her shoulder and fire before he is on her. She drops the bow from her shoulder, then pulls her sword with two fingers and drops that to the side as well, her hands up at her shoulders.

"What do you want?" she asks, forcing calm in her voice, not the terror that grips her.

"Oh, you know already, I think," he says in a scratchy voice, and gently drags his leather gloved hands over her cheek. "I want you."

Richard pulls his horse to a halt as he reaches the barrier, a set of stone blocks erected on the perimeter of Pegasus Way. He glances at the Temple where the Rabbis live, and then back at the Way, Tasha beside him as he starts to walk towards where he knows Tiamat is hiding. A place choked with magic, even with the tech down, his monsters and creatures able to use their abilities at all times. He had considered, earlier, of doing a sweep of it with all his people, but he can't contain the borders, it's too much space, and the groups would be too small to handle what would arise. Now he has a target, though, and he intends to press his advantage hard, plus the ace up his sleeve, though it's really a joker.

The shapeshifters behind him all form up in their groups as he pauses just inside the Way, the Vikings, Witches and Vohls mixed in with them now, and his nose fluttering as he recalls the last time he was here. No one in Houston knows this area better than him, as he hunts here regularly to thin out the monsters and villains that would hide from the law and order of the human world. He trots into the Way at the head of a column of shapeshifters as well as the best the Vikings and Russians have to offer, none of the monsters from the Way gets in their path as they trot then run, the creatures knowing that a greater threat than them are hunting here tonight. In less than twenty minutes he arrives at where the map Bridgette had given him had indicated and he pauses as he strides to the mound.

The mound is a hundred yards across, a domelike rise in shattered concrete, glass and dirt with steel beams mixed in. The mound is only thirty yards high at its apex, and Tiamat is there with a cloaked figure next to him. Richard motions the shapeshifters to encircle the mound and he ascends it slowly, all of the creatures that the bald necromancer had known about gone and dead. Richard stops about fifteen yards from Tiamat, who is covered in plate armor in addition to his robes and tight fitting iron helmet. Richard stops at where the edge of a blood ward is erected, Tiamat inside it with a tri-bladed dagger in hand, and the other cradling a figure wrapped in a cloak in his arms.

"As I said before, you are just as advertised, Richard Michaels," Tiamat says in his scratchy, deep voice that has a hint of nasal to it. "Is this when you reason with me, and ask me to surrender to the Khan?"

"No," Richard says firmly, shaking his head and his hand ready to draw his sword. "You've killed many of my people, nearly killed a good friend, and wounded one of my children. You will die tonight."

"It is you who will die tonight, Richard Michaels," Tiamat says with a light chuckle in his voice. "Or should I use your birth name?" he asks loudly, the sound reverberating now. "Anthony Richard Hessberg."

"Anthony Hessberg died years ago!" Richard booms back at the man who still holds a dagger poised over the chest of the figure in his arms. "He was a weak, pathetic child, and _I_ rose from his ashes! I _am_ Richard Michaels! I am the _KHAN_!"

"Touching words, and I can hear your conviction, Khan," Tiamat says, using his title now. "So, as khan, are you ready to sacrifice?"

Tiamat pulls the cloak open, revealing the face of the body he holds, Natalie Rushman, her face pale and bruised, blood leaking from her mouth and nose. Her eyes are filled with fear and lock immediately onto Richard's. Tiamat holds the dagger's tip firmly on the point just over her heart while the other arm supports her tied up weight, the fingers of that hand gently caressing her cheek.

"I need a human sacrifice to bring my children into this world," Tiamat says in a singsong tone as he etches on the fabric over Natalie's heart. "It must be a fighter, a protector of the innocent, a champion. Now, Knight Rushman here, she fills the bill. But I would really prefer a greater champion…"

The helmet tilts up slightly, his gaze obviously on Richard now, and he clenches his jaw at the implied demand. Tiamat lets the silence stretch for a moment, then says it aloud.

"Drop your weapons, kneel and swear eternal fealty to the god who rules us all in his benevolence, _swear_ loyalty to Roland," Tiamat says in an angry tone, his voice demanding now.

"If I swear to him, I will be his slave, as will all my people, chess pieces to be moved and sacrificed on a whim to a man who has no regard or care for us," Richard says with a hard glare at the man who pretends at being a god of chaos.

"You've already danced to my tune beautifully, you've jumped where I've wanted you to jump, and though I am surprised how quickly you found me, it will change nothing," Tiamat says in a dark tone. "My master wishes you to follow willingly, rather than to destroy you outright. Join him, or you will all die."

"Don't do it," Natalie says in a barely audible tone, Richard reading her lips more than hearing her, even with his enhanced hearing.

"Fuck you," Richard says solidly with a nearly imperceptible pause from reading her lips, all the surrounding shapeshifters hearing him clearly. "We are the Free People of the Horde, a Pack of the Code. We will not submit to a dictator and tyrant."

"Well, it was worth a try," Tiamat says with a shrug, then shoves the three bladed dagger deep into Natalie's chest.

Natalie's weak scream is disrupted by the flow of magic on the hilltop, the spell Tiamat had cast reaching a crescendo as human blood and life is spilled. Richard claws his left hand and shoves the bloody palm into the ward, roaring as the pain of trying to pull down the ward filled with ancient magic hits him. His vision fades but he pushes harder as the roar in his throat and ears increases, blood falling from ears and nose in a stream, tears of blood dripping from his eyes. The ward cracks and explodes, and he is thrown down the mound, rolling and crashing near the line of his people. He tries to roar a command but cannot, as he begins to vomit blood onto the ground, his body purging the cost of breaking the ward.

"Forward!" Tasha shouts as Richard is tossed from the top of the mound with a thunderclap.

They trot up the slope, stopping with weapons ready as they reach fifteen yards, now a tight circle of shapeshifters around where Tiamat is kneeling, vomiting blood onto the ground through the grate of his mask. He hacks and finishes throwing up, chuckling as he does, rising up on his knees to rest on his heels, then breaking into a hysterical laughter. Richard is at the lines now, pushing himself to the front, an angry look on his face as he wipes the blood from his face, smearing it.

"Okay, so _more_ than advertised," Tiamat says while laughing. "But now my children have _come_!"

The dark clouds that had been churning above them twist further in unfelt winds, and purple lightning cracks down from the sky to strike the ground around the mound. Most hitting within two hundred yards. The lighting strikes with only a sharp crack, not the usual thunder that accompanies close lightning, and after a dozen and one strikes, Tiamat's laughter turns maniacal.

"And now you have to deal with Quingu and my champions!" Tiamat cackles into the night.

"DOMASCA! NOW!" Richard bellows as Tiamat rises to his feet, revealing the iron plate armor on his body, each with glowing written cuneiform writing on it.

"The Tablets of Destiny protect me from all magic, Khan, your witches cannot harm me," Tiamat says, picking up a bronze shod staff from the ground, a five foot long iron shaft with bands of bronze and capped in the same burnished metal, cuneiform etched on it.

"This is not a spell, Tiamat," Richard says, bracing himself. "This is a blood curse."

The death curse of the Coven hits them both at that moment, and the pain they had experienced at the crashing of the ward feels as nothing compared to this. The pain racks them both as they fight against the power of the earth drawn up and tied to their blood, demanding their return to the embrace of Gaia.

Tasha stands next to Richard, Mischa on his other side as he falls to his hands and knees, Tiamat doing the same, a blue-white glow emanating from them that forces the others to back off. Tasha looks to where the lightning had struck, watching as the ground shudders and shakes, and massive forms break from the ground. Dreadfully sized monsters with scales and horns, one a twenty foot tall half-minotaur half-dragon emerging from the ground, slabs of stone, concrete and dirt falling from its dark blue scaly hide the largest.

Twelve monsters rise from the ground, spread around the mound where the shapeshifters stand, their backs now towards where Richard and Tiamat are on all fours fighting for their lives against the Coven's curse. The Coven has fallen to its knees in exhaustion, spent from the casting, the allied black vohls and more numerous white vohls mixed in with them. The black vohls defend the witches as the white vohls look to heal and treat those who will soon be wounded in the battle.

"Break into sections, two squads per beast, Vikings pick one, and that is yours," Tasha shouts aloud. "When your beast is crippled, leave enough to finish it and help those who need it!" She looks at where the massive demonic dragon/minotaur bastard child is rising with a huge battle axe nearly thirty feet long from end to end, "Thor, the big one is yours!"

One of the Vikings steps forward and tosses his excessively large gray cloak off, revealing the Norse god of thunder in scale armor, Mjolnir in hand and red cape behind him, "With pleasure."

He spins his hammer and flies into the sky, pausing a few dozen yards in the air, then pointing the hammer at the monster. Lightning cracks and drops from the sky to Mjolnir, then lancing out at the horned monster dragonkin. The creature bellows and roars at Thor, but is unaffected by the lightning as it ripples along its hide and diffuses into the ground. Thor is undeterred and dives in at it, hammer leading.

Tasha turns away as Mjolnir strikes at the monster's axe, the clash resounding across the battlefield. She looks around as the shapeshifters and Vikings attack the rising monsters, her brow furrowing.

"Where is Quingu?" Mischa asks from beside her, and immediately after, an object erupts from the ground two hundred yards away, the furthest of the lightning strikes.

The object launches into the sky, two, three hundred yards up, then massive wings erupt from the body, a pair of legs and a long tail trailing down from it. The dragon is clad in heavy black scales that glitter like obsidian in the night from flashes of lightning in the clouds, talons on the joints of its wings, massive talons on its legs. The long neck measures twenty yards long with a colossal head and a beaklike snout that contains hundreds of teeth, each the size of knives and daggers. The tail is longer, thirty yards long with a heavy head on the end of it with spikes, the body in between like that of a raptor, twenty yards long and its demonic wings extending over fifty yards on a side.

"You _had_ to say something," Tasha mutters as she watches the wings snap out, the sound reverberating over everyone on the mound, then raises her voice. "That one is for the Pride. Mischa, take the lions and bring it down."

"Thanks, Tash," Mischa mutters to herself, looking at the massive dragon circle the mound. "Pride! To me!"

Richard is growling low in his throat as his vision returns, the edges black and gray fading to red, his sight tunneled to half of what it should be as he resists the call of the earth. His raised head is looking across at where Tiamat is on all fours, the blocky lettering on his armor glowing fiercely in the night, trying to block the curse. Richard takes a breath, his ribs shooting with pain as he pulls in the air to his lungs, the sensation burning in his chest as the curse calls him to join with the dirt under his hands and knees. He shoves the ground away from him, rising to his knees only, his brows lowered as he glares across at Tiamat, who has raised his head from where he had been staring at the staff clutched in both his hands.

Richard drags one foot forward and rises to one knee, the pain in his joints fire as the pain of indescribably cold chills burn his organs. Tiamat has planted one end of the staff on the ground and is using it to push himself upright, now on both knees ten yards away. Richard pushes and rises roughly to both feet, the dirt under his feet tossed aside as he struggles to find his balance through the thundering in his ears. Tiamat strains and shoves against the staff, and a pair of breaths later he is on his feet as well, his chin lowered and his unseen eyes glaring across at Richard. Richard takes a ragged breath as he feels exhaustion and pain throughout his being, his magic thoroughly used up and nearly totally expended in the past few minutes, and his body feeling more exhausted and used up than he has ever felt, even including Ranger School.

Richard takes a breath and pulls his gladius from his back, his vision clearing and the burning along his skin and the freezing chill in his chest subsiding as he dominates the curse leveled against him. He focuses his mind and shoves away his body's demands that he is done, that he can push no harder and do no more, that he is done. He shoves magic into the blade, it bursting with flames a foot long, and he rears back and hurls it across at Tiamat. The masked man drops to the ground while shifting the staff, the blade skipping off the iron with a burst of fire and sparks flying out five feet, blinding the god of chaos.

Richard is moving forward with the Viking katana in hand, held low to his side two handed as he moves forward. Tiamat has rolled to the side and is on his feet unsteadily, but moves the staff around himself in a defensive pattern as Richard slices and slashes at him in a Japanese attack set. Tiamat regains his balance and footing and the two begin to trade attacks, blocks and parries more evenly, sparks flying from where the blade meets staff. The length of the staff allows Tiamat a slight reach advantage, but Richard's long, two handed sword allowing him to keep up and lick out at his opponent as well.

Tasha leaps from where she had just delivered a trio of slashes on the back of a creature that has six arms on a human torso, the lower body of a bull and formed like Centaur, a short sword gripped in each of its hands. She lands and rolls from where she landed and spins, leaping uphill and surveying the field as the other shapeshifters continue to attack the scale covered monster. She glances uphill, noting that Richard and Tiamat are exchanging attacks, sparks flying into the night from the contact, and her gaze catches on where his gladius is lying to the side, burning in the night. She leaps to the discarded sword, picking it up and looking around to see where she is needed.

Mischa and seven of the Pride are running on the ground, chasing where the dragon, Quingu, is circling the field, waiting for the monster to dive and attack. She notes its change in wingbeats, and where it looks to dive at and she starts to sprint across the battlefield, dodging and hopping over obstacles and attacks from passing monsters. She slides near where two squads of shapeshifters are attacking a creature that is seventeen feet tall, half dragon half wolf, and Quingu has nearly finished its dive. Tasha leaps with the gladius in her left and sabre in her right, landing hard on the dragon's wing root on its right side.

She has shoved the gladius in as deep as it will go and clutches tightly as she wraps her arms around the neck, her legs around the wing muscle, scrabbling not to fall off. She tries to shove the long blade of her saber up under the scales, but can't find a spot loose enough to manage it, simply chipping pieces of obsidian scale into the night. She's rocked as the dragon strikes the ground hard and she flies into the night as the impact is immense, tossed end over end and skittering across the rocky ground. She slides to her toes and knuckles as she regains her balance, looking back where she had come from, gashes on her cheeks and her joints hurting but nothing broken, her armor having done its job.

The dragon had flinched at Tasha's impact and cut to its flight muscles, and hadn't pulled out of its dive properly. It had slammed into the ground hard, squashing four shapeshifters with the impact, but now fumbling in a crater of its own making, hurt from the impact. Tasha watches a Mischa and the Pride leaps on its back, weapons raised high as they use their steel weapons to strike at the sensitive back muscles and spine. Quingu is writhing as it tries to dislodge the mostly warrior form shapeshifters from its back, all of them with claws to make their own grips and keep their place on its back.

The gladius had remained in its back near the root of the wing, but Mischa is there, grabbing the handle and shoving the flaming blade in again and again as she seeks to sever the monster's spine. The rest of the pride is tearing in, and as Tasha watches one is snatched in the jaws of the dragon, Nita, and is crushed in its maw. Nita doesn't stop clawing and gouging in her own warrior form as the massive jaws crush her ribs and internal organs, her legs going limp. Nita continues to claw with her arms, one holding a foot long dagger she buries again and again in the dragon's snout.

Tasha has moved without thinking, leaping at the dragon's neck, just below the jaws. She lands with one hand clutching a spike along its neck ridge. She swings forward and wraps her legs around the horn over the eyes, then swinging again as the dragon flails with Nita in its jaws still. She braces herself along the spike bordering the eye, the malevolently red eye fixed on her suddenly as she raises her sabre back awkwardly, the blade pointed downward in her left hand. She shoves the blade into the right eye quickly, more concerned with speed than power or technique, and the nearly three foot long blade slides into the open eye.

She shoves hard while keeping braced on the spike and horn, and buries the blade into the eye and skull, until the short cross guard is pushing against the eye. The neck and head flail as the blade pierces the brain and scrapes along the inside of the skull, and Tasha is thrown from the dragon as it spasms violently. The world flips over and over, and then she lands awkwardly on a slab of concrete on the side of the mound, sharp pain stabbing up her side as her right forearm breaks and her ribs crack at the awkward impact. She blinks against the pain and looks up to see how the rest of the Pride is, and can see where Quingu is slowing its thrashing, the blade through its brain a death blow, and the message slowly being received by the rest of the body.

She holds her arm to her side, protecting her ribs and arm as she limps towards the stilling dragon, her lions around it, picking up the hurt and dead. She stops at the skull that is settling on the gravely rock and stones under it, the handle of her sabre jutting out of its eye. She reaches forward and pulls the sword out with her good left arm, stumbling from the skull, her left knee feeling all wrong, and she looks around again.

"Mischa," she says, holding out the sword. "Continue the attack."

"Aye, Nimir-ra," Mischa says, her voice distorted by her warrior form, but her tone holding respect, as does all the others of the Pride that had witnessed Tasha's attack.

"I'll try to keep Nita alive until Richard or the White Vohls can help heal her," Tasha says as she limps over to where Nita is dragging her bleeding and broken body from the jaws of the dead dragon, the mouth slackening in death.

Thor crashes Mjolnir into the huge battle axe, angry and amazed that the axe has not chipped or bent under the onslaught of his attacks on the weapon. The monster is huge, strong in proportion as a shapeshifter would be, and his blade is unbreakable, judging by how it stands up to his own attacks. He yells and parries a huge chop from the monster to the side as he stands on the rocky ground, the blade burying into the rock. The beast pulls it free effortlessly, and Thor dives and rolls to the side with his red cloak following him, barely avoiding the backhanded slash.

He leaps forward after spinning Mjolnir, a flying leap aimed not at the creature's head or chest, but at its knee. The head of Mjolnir strikes the side of the kneecap hard, and the beast bellows as it falls to one knee, the kneecap sliding around to the back of the leg, torn out of place. Thor smiles grimly as he rolls down the slope slightly, sliding on a knee and one foot with Mjolnir to the side as the monster shifts on its own knees to face him, unable to stand.

"You are nearly finished, monster," Thor says with a warrior's grin, spinning Mjolnir to his side and leaping again, this time aiming for a shoulder.

Mitchell leaps to the side of the spearlike appendage that stabs at where he had just been, trying to impale him on the ground. This creature is covered in black scales like stone, though dull and not shiny as the dragon's is, but with forward swept horns on head perched atop a long neck. It has four muscular arms on its torso and two more insectile limbs hanging over its shoulders to stab down in front of it, the top of its head fifteen feet high. The legs look that that from a bear, but covered in scales and ending in massive claws, giving it good footing on the gravel and rocks of the mound.

He dives to the side again as he dodges another pair of attacks from the appendages, then rolling backwards to avoid a swipe of a massive arm tipped with talons. He leaps forward with a signal to the four others with him, and he leaps at the monster's face while another leaps on its back in the form of a Jaguar, and another leaps at the left arms in Leopard form. Mitchell has stopped paying attention, though, his own armored warrior form holding a rounded axe and he grips the horns on its head with one hand while chopping with the other. The upper right hand grabs the back of his armor, and he can feel the claws cut through the silk beneath the armor in his lower back, but continues to hold the horn desperately while chopping on the neck.

After a dozen chops and the monster clawing at him the whole while, arterial blood sprays into the night sky, and Mitchell chops twice more then leaps from the torso. He lands and calls to his people to back off, and he watches as the monster stumbles after his other cats, but they back off and keep their distance, letting the beast bleed to death.

"In pairs, go help the others!" he shout to them, and the remains of his squad sprint off to help others of the Horde with the remaining champions of Tiamat.

He studies the field, and can see that the others have done as he has, crippling or landing a mortal blow then standing to a distance. There seem to be three crippled monsters trying to close with members of the Horde who are harrying them as wolves will on its prey. He can see a number of shapeshifters, still on the field, dead and in human form. They have won this battle, this war, but at cost.

A flash of light to the side catches his attention, and he looks to the top of the mound, where the Khan is exchanging attacks with Tiamat, sparks flying from where the long blade strikes iron staff.

Richard parries another thrust from the staff, shifting into an attack series of five, three slashes, a thrust and a slash, and the last attack, an unorthodox attack off balance, cuts across Tiamat's breastplate. The runes on the metal flares bright gold, blinding both combatants, and a deep crack of thunder reverberates in the night as a shockwave rolls out, throwing them both back ten feet. Richard is on one knee with the blade of his sword before him, blinking his blindness away, and now seeing Tiamat on the summit.

The breastplate is cracked, webbing of fractures through the solid plate piercing the cuneiform written on it. The gold light dims and the iron plate crumbles, revealing just the dirty silk robe beneath it. Tiamat is grabbing at the falling debris of his armor, a frantic motion to it, and Richard rises smoothly to his feet, finding his center.

"You destroyed the tablet!" Tiamat nearly screams at Richard in his scratchy voice, picking up the staff again, and Richard parries the attacks.

Richard says nothing, but parries and waits for his opening, feigning an attack to the front that he shifts to a slash on the armored back. The blade slices on the back plate, and again a thunderclap and shockwave roll out, throwing Richard ten yards away. He recovers faster than last time, and is unsurprised to see that the back plate of armor is turning to crumbs. Tiamat rises, and Richard can feel the hate and rage roll off the man, even though he can't see his face, then he is assaulted with a barrage of attacks.

Richard is fighting hard on the defensive, the man faster and stronger than any normal human, and Richard finally manages to lock him into an embrace of weapons after a long series of exchanges. They struggle against each other for a moment and Richard looks into the holes in the mask.

"You are a man, just like any other," Richard says coldly as they push on each other, vying for dominance. "You bleed, therefore you can die, and I will be the one to kill you."

"Perhaps," Tiamat says with a grunt, nodding slightly, and a hysterical edge entering his voice, then a giggle as he continues. "But I won't leave without introducing some anarchy into your life as a parting gift…"

Tiamat shifts and thrusts out, and unorthodox attack that would place the capped end of the staff in Richard's sternum, but opens him to attack from the side. Richard reacts without thinking, deflecting with his off hand to push the attack to a less damaging area while thrusting with his blade into Tiamat's ribs. Richard receives a solid thrust with the staff to his ribs, breaking two ribs and shattering the breastplate of armor. At the same time the curved sword thrusts six inches through bone and organs, bisecting Tiamat's heart. Richard stumbles back from the blow, a magic charge running up his spine and into his head that dazes him but not enough to throw him off balance.

Tiamat stumbles back, his knees giving out as his body realizes his heart has been split in two, and he falls to the side ungraciously. Richard holds his position for a long moment then walks up to the body, looking down at the iron mask and plates. He touches the long curved blade to the helmet and pushes magic into it, raising the temperature, and the mask turns red hot quickly. In a short time the body is burning, but Richard continues to push heat into it, and the flesh is quickly charred to the bone. He steps back as he feels his work is done, but tilts his head at what happens next.

The helmet rolls with the skull a few feet from the body and stops with the face pointing downward and upright. Fluid begins to pour from the eye sockets, red semi-solid at first, then black, then thick blood pours out, followed by dirty water and then clear over the matter of a few minutes. The red and black form into a colorful dichromatic rock in two paths, and two streams start to flow from the eyes into small creeks down the ragged mound. Richard quirks an eyebrow at that, then turns to the battlefield at large.

Thor parries the blow from the axe aside and leaps up at the slowing monster, his hammer striking the creature in the chin and sending it sprawling on its back. He lands on its chest and lands a hammer blow on its chin, then again on the side of its head as it goes limp. As he rolls away, he looks around the field to see where he may be needed next, but is surprised to see that the rest of the Horde are finishing up their opponents as well. He looks to the hilltop, and notes that the Khan is holding his flaming blade to the helmet of Tiamat, and he strides that way.

After watching the helmet spew funnels for the beginnings of a pair of creek beds as well as water, he turns to Richard with a grin as the Khan looks about the battlefield to assess his people.

"Well fought, Friend Richard," Thor says with a grin, holding Mjolnir to his side. "Your gambit paid off, to curse both you and he, as well as concealing me in your ranks."

Richard looks at Thor with a tired expression, "Como prego dovalich then?"

Thor blinks hard at Richard, "You aren't making any sense."

"Como prego dovalich then?" Richard says again, and his brow is furrowed in frustration, his meaning not getting across as he wants it to.

After a moment of scowling, he looks back at where the staff Tiamat had wielded sits next to the burned body. He picks it up and scowls at it hard.

"Bodily ayanik, metruski petrolik," Richard says with an angry expression, pausing and gesturing mutely at the staff, then at his throat and mouth.

Thor frowns as he looks at the weapon then at Richard, then says what they both are thinking, "Shit."

Richard is sitting on the roof of the barn, taking deep breaths in the early morning light to calm himself after the battle of the evening. He wants to sleep, but he has too much to do, and the first must be taken care of immediately. When they'd left the Way and met a world ruled by tech, he had been able to speak, which means that so long as magic rules, he will be unable to talk. Writing worked fine, though, and he can read and hear just fine, but can't communicate to others verbally.

And he has business of the Horde to finish before the tech wave ends and he can't speak again, so he is having all the Alphas gather in the arena, with all the Horde watching. The agenda is to speak on the attacks by Tiamat and where they go from here, as well as a celebratory feast. He catches a wave from the door of the arena where he has been watching out of the corner of his eye and hops from the barn roof. He lands on bent knees, his katana on his hip, gladius on his back and ice axe lost when Tasha had killed the shark woman.

He strides to the arena, glancing at the decoration over top of the main arena entrance. The man-spider is doused in preserves and spells, and the dead creature now adorns the front entrance of the arena, spread out to display the impressive monster it was in life. Now it is a decorative trophy to the Khan's capabilities and prowess. He strides under the torso, which is twelve feet up and propped with wood and iron to look like it is rearing up and shrieking at the distance. Richard is wearing jeans, barefoot, t-shirt and long sleeved shirt with a brown leather vest and his weapons, a determined look on his face.

He strides into the arena and as he clears the entrance to the main area, the gathered shapeshifters cheer loudly, and a chant rises up from them, "Khan, khan, khan…"

He walks to where the Alphas of all the Clans are gathered, Heavy, Cat, Wolf, Rat, Jackal and Bouda, sitting in simple chairs on a platform in the center, trestle tables arrayed around it for the feast about to begin, buffet tables for the overflow to take back to the stands. Richard ascends the steps to the platform and notes with satisfaction that there is a cleared area in front of it, as he had instructed. He raises his hands and motions for quiet, and after less than a minute, the crowd is silent as it waits for his words.

"Roland sent a god against us," he speaks loudly, the acoustics in the arena good, but the hearing of all those there heightened and all straining in silence to hear his words. "And we defeated him and his champions, though not without cost. Many of the Horde will never see their loved ones again, will never eat with us again, will never see their friends and family again."

Those gathered nod somberly at the statement, nearly a hundred shapeshifters having died since the raid failed and the attacks on the city and Horde. Richard takes that somber feeling and directs it as he had intended when he told Tasha his findings and calling this gathering.

"But it is not just Roland who would attack us, but one of our own," he booms with anger entering his voice, his eyes flashing orange. "One of our leaders, one we trusted to protect us and lead us, has taken money and favors from Roland and his people in exchange for information and action within the Horde."

He turns from where he had been looking around at the assembled shapeshifters, nearly all of whom bristle and eyes flash with anger and power. He surveys the assembled leaders behind him carefully and levelly. Noel sits solidly with his niece, Richette's sister and a were-badger, the female Alpha for Heavy, the Domascas beside him in well-tailored suits and sharp expressions and hairstyles. Mischa sits in jeans and leather vest over a blouse and weapons, Mitchell beside her as the Alphas for Clan Cat, the Torres' next to them in jeans and polo shirts for Clan Rat, Jameson and her boyfriend beside them for Bouda. His eyes rest on the last pair, though, Mr. Jay and his wife Celeste, both were-Jackals and the leaders of their Clan.

"Why, Jay?" Richard demands solidly as he meets the leveled and unflinching gaze of the were-jackal. "You have been here for over a decade. Why did you betray those who trusted you as a brother?"

Jay rises to his own slender but muscular height of six feet, his dark hair and exotic features taking on a more haughty air as he looks down at Richard.

"Pelos was crazy, and I planned to one day de-throne him, for the good of the Pack," Jay says as he pulls his jacket from his shoulders and hands it to his wife, Richard pulling his weapons belt off as well. "When you arrived on scene, I saw that you would not wait, so I let you do the work, managing, organizing, and bearing the heavy load of killing Pelos and others that stood in the way of the Pack. The People were my major concern."

"Then why take money from Roland?" Richard asks, handing his weapons to Tasha, accepting a challenge knife six inches long from her, Jay doing the same from his wife.

The two men stride to the edge of the platform and hop easily to the packed dirt below, eyes on each other.

"You think not bowing will make us any less of a pawn to him?" Jay says with a snort. "I know of him, as well as you do or better, Michaels. He is the Tower Builder, he is the destroyer and builder of Empires, not mere nations. We are better as his servants than as his enemies. We are pawns either way."

Jay speaks with a quiet but firm belief, and Richard purses his lips and shakes his head, "You are truly lost, Javier, you will not live long."

"My wife and children," Jay says quietly, enough only so that Richard can hear him.

"Your crimes are your own," Richard says firmly, assuming a fighting stance with the knife before him. "You will answer for yours, and should they have their own crimes, they will answer for them. I am fair."

"Thank you," Jay says, then shuffles forward and lashes out with the blade.

Richard ducks and dodges the long swipes from the taller man, having six inches of reach on Richard. Richard dodges and moves, avoiding the blade and the quick reflexes of the were-jackal, avoiding the counter-attacks. They slash at each other for over three minutes before Richard rolls closer than usual and a swipe low cuts Jay's Achilles tendon, and the olive skinned man stumbles forward at the loss of capability. Richard reacts immediately, shuffling on soft toes to the left, Jay slashing blinding to his right. Richard hammer strikes the knife in and down Jay's left shoulder joint from the side, spinning lightly away, the nearly severed arm bleeding profusely into the dirt of the arena.

Richard stops and stands out of arm's reach of Jay as he gasps his last breaths while he bleeds out, then stills completely in death. Richard turns from him and looks to the arena, where the Horde is gathered and watches on.

"He received nearly two hundred thousand dollars over the last nine months from subsidiaries of Roland," Richard calls loudly. "You witnessed his actions when he was confronted. His actions are his own, not his family's. They will be investigated and if cleared, returned to the Horde to live normal lives. They will not be held accountable for the crimes of their father and dead husband."

He turns from the dead body of the former Alpha of the Jackal Clan and jumps easily onto the platform, looking at the Betas of the Clan that look at each other awkwardly for a moment, then step forward and take their seats as Alphas.

Richard moves and slowly turns in place as he gazes intently at the assembled shapeshifters in the arena, nearly all of the Horde, six hundred here and less than another hundred elsewhere in the city. He smiles as he looks at them all and raises his hands.

"Roland sent a god of chaos with full intent to destroy us utterly and cripple this city!" he roars at the crowd. "Instead, we are victorious! We slew every monster he threw at us, and now, we are stronger in this city than ever before, and richer in both wealth and reputation! The Horde is VICTORIOUS!"

The crowd cheers at his words, and he waves to the tables in the open arena, "FEAST! Celebrate life! The monsters have been vanquished and we all deserve to celebrate!"

Richard and Tasha sit at a table on the dirt with everyone else, eating from the buffet like everyone else, no one being served today, once the food had been laid out. Richard leans over and kisses her on the lips, happy to have this day and this moment, especially considering he wasn't sure he was going to live to see the end of it. He squeezes her hand then resumes eating while scanning the crowd, a tight smile on his face as always, they settle on a couple dancing to the music of a country quartet on the raised platform, his expression turning to a frown.

"Let it go, Richard," Tasha says from beside him with a sigh. "Hell, you told him to take care of them if things went south."

"He was a bad plan B, if Atticus failed," Richard grouses, placing a piece of brisket in his mouth and chewing. "And he would have died before letting the girls get hurt."

"So would Joachim," Tasha says with a frown, patting his shoulder and squeezing it. "The Sochims are on the mend, and Atticus is grudgingly talking to him about magic engine classes."

"Doesn't mean I have to like that Maddie is interested in him," Richard grouses around a mouthful of food. "I'm a father now, I'm allowed to be somewhat unreasonable when it comes to my teenage daughters' choices in boys."

"At least he's a shapeshifter," Tasha says with a shrug.

Richard puts both utensils down on the table and closes his eyes hard for a moment, "Don't say stuff like that, please. I wouldn't care what species, as long as it's human-ish and realistically conscious and intelligent. Species or race isn't an issue."

He is looking at the table hard, and Tasha has leaned back from him for a moment, surprised at the outburst.

"Okay," Tasha says, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. "I knew you were equal rights, and so am I, but damn… Where did that come from?"

Richard takes a deep breath and takes a drink of beer and resumes in a calmer tone so only she can hear, "My dad was a big bigot. Really pisses me off when people are unfair for no real reason."

Tasha leans over and kisses him on the cheek, and he turns and leans into her for a moment, wrapping an arm around her. He looks around them at the assembled Horde in the mid-morning light as they celebrate being alive and living. He smiles, and after a few moments, happiness rising in him as he looks at them all, eating, laughing, enjoying each other.

"Think about it, two years ago, three, compared to today," Richard says with a smile, his arm around her, then looking down at her as she looks around, a happy smile on her face as well.

"We did this," he says, squeezing slightly, and she pushes free and kisses him fully, then they resume eating, Jocelyn joining them as they enjoy the day of celebration with the Horde.

Epilogue…

Autumn sits on the roof of the barn, frowning as she looks down at the staff laid in front of her. Richard had given it to her with a very short summary of what had happened to him while fighting Tiamat. Part of her is offended that the Mother of Dragons would manifest as a guy, but such is life. She's waiting for the magic to return so she can cast scrying spells and divinations, and then she'll start working on counteracting the spell, Odin may be of help, but he'll go into the Odinsleep in a week, so probably not.

The up side is that she'll need to use the Rabbi's library to research this, the downside is that they won't let her in without knowing what and why she's researching. She figures her bargaining chip will be the panacea process, but she'll have to get approval from Tasha and Richard for that. The burden to her is what Richard had said when he'd handed her the staff, that it was hers now. Leave it to her brother to drop a priceless ancient artifact of immense power and ability into her hands without a moment's hesitation.

She looks at where the Horde is celebrating and smiles tightly. Richard is going to hide his babbling curse as long as he can, only a few knowing the truth, her, Tasha and a couple others that are trusted implicitly. Hopefully she can reverse the curse before anyone else knows, but time will tell. She rises with the heavy staff, realizing she's going to have to do more weightlifting in the gym to be able to match her speed with this weapon compared to her lighter wooden staff she is used to. She smirks at the thought, setting her cloak and bag to the side, then begins a slow set of forms with the new weapon in the mid-day light.

End….


End file.
